Life is grand

Every day someone is out there starting a business whose entire goal is to beat the hell out of yours. How cool is that.

Not cool, Mark Cuban, not cool at all.

I dislike competition for competition’s sake. Cuban and businessman like him are not in business to build, they are in business to compete with each other. To go mano-a-mano and see who comes out on top, at the expense of the other. There is no victory without loss in this “sport of business.” You haven’t won if your competitor remains, even if they are #2. You still have work to do, to utterly undermine and destroy. You haven’t won then either as “every day someone out there is starting a business whose entire goal is to beat the hell out of yours.”

Why beat the hell out of your competitor when you could work with them and become greater than the sum of your parts? I suspect ego and “being number 1″ prevents this for people like Mark. They cannot share the podium. Why destroy them when your needs, not wants, can be satisfied alongside theirs? Perhaps because their wants, “being number 1″, become their needs.

This competition eats at the competitors themselves. They will sacrifice their flesh for the win. Sacrifice “4 girlfriends” and think that cutting back to 18 hours a day of work is being generous to their families.

Our world, our humanity and the progress of both are far greater than business. Business as we have it now is a symptom of our limited abilities and resources. Unfortunately it has infected individuals and societies to become a legitimate and worthy pursuit, the end and not the means.

Someone commented that Mark Cuban has “great insight and wisdom” but this is either a severely limited form of insight and wisdom or is the illusion of both. Many a great sportsman has no insight and wisdom; they have a focused understanding of what is required to win in their chosen field.

Unlike a true sportsman however a businessman affects the lives of many and holds in his hands much responsibility. Beware the CEO who would sacrifice this to be #1, to “beat the hell out of your’s.”

I concede business to Mark Cuban, the glory and the power. He can have it and all its trappings. Mark can be assured I don’t wake up every morning wondering how I can beat him.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 12th, 2008 at 10:57 pm and is filed under Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.