Insurmountable

Friday October 13, 2006 - 4:19AM EDT

Haven't really been writting posts for a while. I used to write everyday. My seemingly insurmountable workload is the reason. It seems utterly hopeless sometimes. I just can't get things done fast enough. I need a personal assitant or business manager or something along those lines. Problem is though I don't make even close to enough money to even think about doing something like that seriously. In fact that idea is fantasy world illusion. I'm just bad at organizing my affairs.  I can grasp organizational techniques and big pictures things easily but when it comes to just calling people back  and managing my time I am terrible at  it. I guess personal assistants don't help with that.

I used to be of the mindset that a benevolent person could with enough money enact great change in the world. I now not of that mindset. I wonder even how I came to such a naive conclusion. How much has Mr. Gates changed things in this world with all his billions? Or any other person with their billions. I think about what my politics teacher said about the immense power of ideaology and a recent article I read on the founder of craigslist.org.

The article was about how he wasn't thinking about selling his company to someone else which would be worth probably billions. It is a recognized internet name and it is profitable and has been for some time so there is real value there. In the article Mr. Newmark made a comment saying that he could sell his company for a boatload of money then find a cause to support. But remarked that it takes a lot of time and money to find a cause to support. I don't know whether it was a bit tounge in cheek but I think it was a worthwhile remark that made me think.  He was expressing his happiness with the current situation and that suddenly have tons of money would do very little for him and probably very little for anyone else even if he did find a cause. Obviously he makes a very nice living in his current situation but his lack of desire to take wealth to an extreme when it is readily available was refreshing especially from those involved in running internet companies. His stance definately makes me pause for a second when thinking about Google and what they have done up till now. Everyone loves them for every reason imaginable right now and with their great resources from going public they have done or tried to do some good things. That is the path they chose. But is it the best one?

I seriously think about whether it is or not.  With the "don't be evil" motto they want to champion a certain philosophy. I often hear the arguement about expansion and having great resources being a great benefit allowing you to do more. Certainly it appears that way on the surface and it isn't often questioned. But I am begining to question that kind of thinking. I wonder that instead of using brute force resources to enact change that more clever methods can't be found.  Maybe instead of measuring company success in monetary units it can be done another way. Large company profits only go to benefit a small number of people (maybe larger when you factor in public stock ownership). Also the benefit is only concrete in relation to monetary wealth.  Other secondary affects vary so widely that you can't say that having a lot of money would be beneficial at all sometimes. What if ,a company,  instead of reaping massive profits do something else. Like raise wages within a company or improve employee healthcare. These are simplistic statements that are more complex in their true nature but that doesn't mean they don't deserve thought. Could a company, through exceptional employee treatment grow that way. Or maybe through hyper-effecieny. Or even fanatical environmental responsibility.  All these are very rough ideas floating around in my head.  I think about Google spending so much money of buying YouTube (of which was stock not cash). But what if they or any company for that matter used resources like that to do something like... I'm not even sure. Something I'd have to think about. Maybe use that money to take a step in trying to make sure all the eletricity they used came from renewable resources. Or screw it, maybe just building a mini solar power plant to provide power to their building.  Could a company say, hey we are going to factor into our costs paying more for electricity that is infinately more plentiful and reliable than what we have now. I have no idea of the feasability of such a thing but it would be interesting for somebody to even just experiment with it just to see.