🌰 I’m struggling with a piece about business writers

I’m struggling with a piece entitled [[🌱 business writers do themselves and their readers a disservice by not thinking about society]]. I have a lot of thoughts on the topic.

There’s long been a sense that capitalism and society are two different things. If you talk about “business”, then you are only talking about profit. You have no responsibility to discuss the negative societal impact of a given business. In fact, you might be considered biased or “out of touch” if you do so.
- With unfettered capitalism starting to crack the concrete beneath our feet, this sentiment is changing. Business leaders and content creators are discussing “conscious capitalism” and the positive impacts of their investments. But they still refuse to think deeply about the negative impacts of the businesses they tout.
This refusal to publicly discuss the negative externalities of their investments is actually to the detriment of these content creators.
- 🌰 knowing what to build away from is just as important as knowing what to build
- Business writers risk looking callous, untrustworthy, or malicious by not learning to acknowledge the downsides of their investments. Investing in Flock Safety, for example, is an a16z piece in which they extol the virtues of their public surveillance investment. It’s a tone deaf piece given that the larger problem the public has with the police is trust, not lack of surveillance. Police have been caught asking similar companies to alter evidence, for heaven’s sake.
Business writers who learn how to discuss these topics become better at business, teach their readers to be better at business, become more valuable early-stage investors, and build trust with their readers.
- This is what I want the core of [[🌱 business writers do themselves and their readers a disservice by not thinking about society]] to be, I think.
It’s easy to write about the dystopian impact these companies could have, if you frame it as “What Facebook should build away from” as opposed to “The bear case for Facebook is that it becomes a panopticon of emotions reducing all political discussion to a wave of fight or flight hormones.”
- It’s simple, yet powerful. “Here’s why I think business X can really make it. If they want to succeed, they just need to make sure they avoid building Y.” No angry sponsors, just a nice roadmap of what to avoid.

Inspired by: (all of the following are external articles)

Every post on this blog is a work in progress. Phrasing may be less than ideal, ideas may not yet be fully thought through. Thank you for watching me grow.

🌰 I'm struggling with a piece about business writers