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Notes -
I was reading this article about Amazon Prime's streaming service:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/inside-amazon-studios-jen-salke-vision-shows-1235364913/
Mostly it's not particularly culture war related, talking about how the executives are blowing huge amounts of money on niche shows that don't bring in enough viewers to justify their costs, or paying big salaries to writers and directors that don't end up producing much.
But this part made me chuckle:
I've seen people argue that big companies aren't ideologically woke, they're just doing it for good publicity with the ultimate goal of making money. I think if that was true then Amazon would tell their producers and directors to make the type of content that people want to see: white men with guns (apparently). And if they didn't want to get on board they should take a hike. That's what a company that wants to make money would do. Instead they're trying to change their audience's preferences which is a much harder and less profitable job.
Am I out of touch? No, it's the audience who are wrong.
The principal-agent problem allows executives and middle managers to express their open hatred for white men through corporate operations, hiring, and promotions at little to no personal cost. Even personal gain. And there’s nothing anyone else can do to stop them.
It’s funny how normalised this all is nowadays.
This reminds me of Iger’s recent complaints about Trump. Iger basically said “Disney exercised its first amendment rights over an issue and DeSantis attacked it.” Iger is probably right on the specifics, but there is a big problem in what Iger said.
Investors didn’t give Disney a bunch of money to make political statements about issues far from Disney’s core business. While Delaware courts have wisely limited their review of what is ultra vires, as a pragmatic issue what Disney did was in fact ultra vires. That means in a real sense Disney executives used other people’s money to say things Disney executives wanted to say. Indeed it didn’t seem to occur to Iger that making political statements unrelated to core Disney business was morally dubious. The fish doesn’t understand water.
But there is a word for what Disney did — stealing. Principal-agent problem is a more fancy specific term but that essentially theft is what P-A problem is.
Disney is a media empire with a very carefully curated public image critical to their business operations.
If they believed their silence on a political matter in the state they are massively associated with would adversely affect their brand, or the productivity of their 200k+ employees, it would be negligent of them to do nothing.
While you can disagree about how they addressed it, it was well in scope of their business.
That reasoning proves too much. By your logic, nothing whatsoever is ever out of scope of someone's business, because it might possibly affect their reputation.
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No one is saying they can’t as a legal matter do what they did.
But taking a strong political position relating to what k-3 kindergartners are taught relating to sexuality in Florida is so far removed from any effect on their brand or workforce that de facto it is ultra vires. If doing that isn’t ultra vires, then nothing is ultra vires as everything can affect brand or workforce.
But maybe you are right. Maybe in our culture where everything is political the company was merely engaging in business practice. That speaks very I’ll of our society.
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