Eric's Newsletter -- February 2022

"A growing body of opinion asserts that the current model of capitalism has failed because of an excessive focus on shareholder interests without sufficient regard to other stakeholders. Its proponents advocate an alternative form of capitalism – stakeholder capitalism." That's the conclusion of a new report from The Investor Forum and the London Business School Centre for Corporate Governance, "What does stakeholder capitalism mean for investors?" It goes on to note that "companies seeking to create long-term value for their shareholders have been an immense force for good, helping to raise billions out of poverty and enhancing the health and living standards of people across the world. The question is how to harness this force to address the future challenges society now faces." The report offers some practical advice on how to deal with the current lack of trust in shareholder value, and reminds us that "investors are privileged to occupy a position of significant influence on corporate priorities. At a time of huge economic and social change, it is essential that this influence is used wisely and with legitimacy."Below are some opportunities for anyone looking to tackle that challenge with a job change, as well as some of the reading I've been doing lately to understand the many dimensions of the problem and the ways in which we can work to address it. I hope you'll find them motivating, too.[Hiring] Legion M, the world's first fan-owned entertainment company, is looking for a Senior Creative Development and Sales Executive to help the company’s growth by leading sales of all creative projects. They're also seeking a CEO/Founder for Stonks TV, a new initiative. You can learn a bit about Stonks TV here.Fieldguide, builders of workflow automation and a collaboration platform for assurance and advisory practices, is looking for a Lead Product Designer, Senior Software Engineers, Account Executives, a Senior Product Marketing Manager, Lead Product Manager, and other roles.Manara, a social impact startup focused on uplifting the economies of the Middle East & North Africa, and diversifying the global tech sector has a number of open roles: Director of Programs & Operations, Talent Manager/Career Coach, Marketing Manager, Engineering Lead, and Product DesignerAirGarage, a parking operator that offers streamlined service covering enforcement, payment collection, maintenance and more, is looking for a Head of Sales, Tech Lead, and Product Manager.Flexpa, which builds products to connect multiple patient Health ID sign-ins, has these open positions: Software Developer and Founding Product Designer. SafeGraph, which aims to be the one-stop place for all data about a physical place, is looking for a Marketing Operations Manager and also has other open positions.Puzzle, with a mission to rebuild the core financial data infrastructure for modern businesses, is hiring for these two roles: Frontend / Product Engineer and Product Lead or Manager for API and Partnerships  [Readings and Video]Why Agatha Christie could afford a maid and a nanny but not a car"It’s one of the most important economic mysteries of the modern world. While the material things in life are cheaper than ever, labor-intensive services are getting more and more expensive. Middle-class Americans today have little trouble affording a car, but they struggle to afford a spot in day care. Only the rich have nannies."The Eight Metaphors of Organization"Gareth Morgan’s book is based on the premise that almost all our thinking about organizations is based on one or more of eight basic metaphors. The main reason this book is hugely valuable is that 99% of organizational conversations stay exclusively within one metaphor.  Worse, most people are permanently stuck in their favorite metaphor and simply cannot understand things said within other metaphors. So these are not really 8 perspectives, but 8 languages. Speaking 8 languages is a lot harder than learning to appreciate 8 perspectives."The Writing on the Wall: Sci-Fi's Empty Techno-Optimism"The year was 2011, and the award-winning sci-fi author Neal Stephenson was drinking himself maudlin on the sweetened wine of nostalgia. 'Some of my earliest memories are of sitting on a braided rug before a hulking black-and-white television, watching the early Gemini missions,' he wrote tipsily in the World Policy Journal. 'I have followed the dwindling of the space program with sadness, even bitterness. Where’s my donut-shaped space station? Where’s my ticket to Mars?' Our problem, he declared, was 'innovation starvation.' And what was the best way to put food on the table? Why, science fiction, naturally. 'A good SF universe,' he explained, 'has a coherence and internal logic…Examples include Isaac Asimov’s robots, Robert Heinlein’s rocket ships, and William Gibson’s cyberspace.'"Back to Normal Isn't Enough"Time does not run backwards. The virus exists now and will continue to exist. But in order to continue underserving the people they represent, elected officials need us to believe that the past was an idyllic time to which we should want to return. They need us to look at the cotton gin and praise American innovation, instead of seeing an instrument of violence. They need us to idealize the past because the system blithely fails most people in the present. They need us to feel like it is our fault that the things schoolchildren are told make the United States different, and great, quite obviously no longer work at all."We Know the Real Cause of Crises in Our Hospitals. It's Greed. In this New York Times Opinion video, "nurses set the record straight about the root cause of the nursing crisis: chronic understaffing by profit-driven hospitals that predates the pandemic. 'I could no longer work in critical care under the conditions I was being forced to work under with poor staffing,' explains one nurse, 'and that’s when I left.' They also tear down the common misconception that there’s a shortage of nurses. In fact, there are more qualified nurses today in America than ever before."