Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
They're a smart business. They're doing things that will keep them in business and encourage future business. Yep, it's a business taking advantage of an opportunity (introducing non-Apple customers to their products, boosting their public image) and ensuring that the staff they need will remain available when they need them.
You've heard the old question "Is it paranoia when they really are out to get you?" Well, is it cynicism when businesses really do have a legal obligation to maximize their value to stockholders, and therefore to take those actions, and only those actions, which do so?
If the employees and management of Apple stood up to their board and their stockholders, and said "yes, this thing we're proposing doing is going to lower the value of the company, but we're doing it because it's the right thing to do" I'd admire them. But doing something that's best for Apple -- doing well by appearing good -- is just business as usual for a global corporation. It's not worthy of any special praise.
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Giving a damn about your employees is, indeed, very good business. The very best way to run a company.
In my experience, however, it is utterly impossible to fake it. If you pretend to care, your best employees will bail on your faster than if you locked them in cages at night and whipped them to work every morning. They
will know if you don't really mean it.
There's no conflict here, and that seems to be what you take issue with. Because they are
not lowering the value of the company, they are significantly increasing it. As Japan recovers, their employees will remember this, and do anything they possibly can to promote the business. The customers, and people who would never have even thought of being customers before, they will remember it, too.
Sometimes, doing the right thing is easy, because it's the right thing in every way.