The article chalks it up to a lack of desire, but that seems completely wrong to me.
The sad truth is that building yet another addictive and attention-grabbing way to push ads into people's faces pays the bills. Doing the right thing does not, or at least not in America.
As a German, it took me a while to figure out how business in the US works, but basically everyone only treats things listed next to a monetary amount in the balance sheet as real. As a result, a concept like "for the good of society" does not exist for most CEOs.
There is plenty of well-educated and well-meaning young people happy to build a better future. They certainly had the desire to do that when they started working.
The real question is how to make it financially viable for them to do the building.
You're right, America has long given up the notion of what is "for the good of society" in favor of making money. Walking around SF (until recently) meant literally seeing both millionaires and people defecating in the street. It's extreme.
Marc wants to know how to use capitalism and growth (building) to overcome this, when the best outcome might be just realizing how broken capitalism in America is.
There exist a culture of people who are happy sleeping outside and living on the streets. Even if all the homeless who don’t want to live on the street have a bed, there will be street people. It’s a lifestyle preference where the weather is nice, like beach bums.
I certainly enjoyed the time when me and my friends slept outside on a beach :) but my criticism of the article isn't so much that people make bad choices, but instead that some choices are blocked for financial reasons.
The sad truth is that building yet another addictive and attention-grabbing way to push ads into people's faces pays the bills. Doing the right thing does not, or at least not in America.
As a German, it took me a while to figure out how business in the US works, but basically everyone only treats things listed next to a monetary amount in the balance sheet as real. As a result, a concept like "for the good of society" does not exist for most CEOs.
There is plenty of well-educated and well-meaning young people happy to build a better future. They certainly had the desire to do that when they started working.
The real question is how to make it financially viable for them to do the building.