S to the A to the N to the D, Y

 

Today, I was thinking about entrepreneurship, ownership, profit sharing and communism and I said to myself - this is a blog post!

Well, I’m a big proponent of entrepreneurship. There are countless opportunities out there. Opportunities for the smart, the not so smart, the wealthy and the poor. Really, the only requirements are ambition and determination. There’s no more productive worker than the one contributing to his/her own enrichment.

I’d love to see everyone become and entrepreneur, but there’s a problem. The successful entrepreneur needs people to work for him/her. So, if I’m talking about everyone needs to go out and take opportunity by the hand, how can I turn around in my own life and ask someone to help me enrich myself, rather than themselves?

That’s where profit sharing comes in! More companies should do it! The US has seen it’s best economic progress when productivity increases. Take that money and give it to your employees.

Karl Marx, the father of communism like to say “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”. However, I’m a capitalist. I believe in the first part of Marx’s quote, but the second part has to be voluntary. That’s why I believe Charles Koch, CEO of Koch Industries (the largest private company in the world) puts it best: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution“.

So, you may see the gaping hole that Marx’s one liner covers and Koch’s doesn’t. That is, what of those people who have been given less ability to make contributions that pay in a capitalist society? Well, since some will be helpers and some will be owners, the owners spark productivity by giving the helpers a stake. Higher productivity equals more wealth and progress for both owners and helpers. In the end, all “classes” as Marx would put it benefit as well as society as a whole.

The bottom line, there’s a lot of opportunity and few people taking advantage. Part of the problem with maximizing opportunity is getting productive workers. The easiest way to make a worker productive is to provide incentives. The best incentive is ownership.

Wouldn’t a documentary that follows a few entrepreneurs from first stages all the way through to end game be interesting? You could pick up your participants from any of the hundreds of college business plan contests held throughout the country each year. Pick a few interesting ideas out and follow them through for the first two years or so. Anyway, I would watch it and it would be a great way to get more people interested in following through with their ambitions.

If you live in a major city, you’re familiar with the concept of a “metro” number. This means that if the phone customer pays more for their phone service, people calling them from the metro area but with a different area code do not have to pay long distance. Not only this, but they don’t have to dial the +1 either. Well, that’s all well and good…but wait, there’s more. If I call someone that has the special “metro” line and dial a +1 (because how am I to know they have a metro line), guess what? The operator tells me that I don’t have to dial +1, I can call without the +1 before the area code. Hang up and try it again good buddy. So now I have to dial a second time.

 

OK, so now I dial phone number two thinking hey, maybe they have a metro line. So this time I leave off the +1. “Oh, sorry guy” says the operator “you have to dial +1 for this cheapskate who didn’t buy our super awesome metro line”. So inevitably, I always put a 1 where there shouldn’t be and leave it off where I should have used it. Is it really that important that I leave the 1 off a metro phone call? I mean, comon! Phone company, if I don’t “have” to dial +1, fine, I’ll try and remember that. Don’t make me hang up and redial it without the 1!

Phone company, I suggest you improve your dialing system so that people like me who are making calls all day don’t go postal one day about your don’t dial 1 or do dial 1 rules.

Superbowl day is coming soon. How many people watch the Superbowl? Well, just over 90 million last year. I’d venture to say that a good chunk of those viewers are spouses of fans and disinterested Superbowl partygoers. What do they like about the Superbowl? THE COMMERCIALS! So, you get in touch with the advertisers for every Superbowl since 1967 and cut a deal. You put all those ads on DVD, organized by year and sell that sucker to the millions of viewers who only watch that game for the breaks.

 So, get this thing going, make millions and buy me season tickets on the 50 yard line to the Cowboys.