Many large companies (f50) have fleets of jets and salaried pilots. Its not uncommon at all for commuting by jet to be the standard. Not sure why this is such a big deal or any different than the thousands of c-suites that commute this way.
This shouldn't be the standard for anybody. It's insanely wasteful and polluting. We should call out this guy and anybody else doing it. Absolutely ridiculous, it would be far cheaper and better for the environment to pay for relocation and arguably C-suites don't even need the help. Don't want to move? Then you're the wrong person for the job.
The problem is the perception of a very rare skillset - ie. being a CEO that did x/y/z at companies in a similar space that the board would like to acquire to achieve for their own company. If they can accomplish the same, the value of that far exceeds the cost, environmental impact, and public perception of something like this.
You might start with 5 or so candidates and then whittle it down to 1 or 2 that are the right person for a job. These people are already wealthy with all that goes along with it and the idea of relocating could be a hard ask. From a successful CEO's perspective, it's probably much easier for them to land another gig that caves to their demands than the other way around.
At this comp level you could say it's similar to a sports star that gets traded to another team, and it is in a way, but that's part of what comes along with being someone like that... in the span of 20 years they may have to uproot their life 3-4x. Their career even starts off like that, where they get selected to a team and boom, they have to move to somewhere they may have never even visited before their life even gets somewhat calcified by having generational wealth.
I think it's pretty clear that commuting 1000 miles by private jet very easily puts you in the top 0.1% of individual polluters even by Western standards. They emit like 2 tonnes of CO_2 in an hour and the average American does like 14 tonnes in an entire year. So even if only goes to Seattle once a week that's like 8 tonnes (assuming 500 MPH flying speed, roundtrip). Every two weeks he's emitting what an average American does, JUST COMMUTING.
Ok phew, for a second there I thought you were going to suggest that the average American made changes in their lives to reduce their environmental impact.
> Not sure why this is such a big deal or any different than the thousands of c-suites that commute this way.
Starbucks pretends to care about the environment and sustainability much more than most. Or at least they used to, he may dial that back since his commute will be mentioned in news articles for at least the next few years.
Having jets contrary to many believes it's not a bad thing, using it for stupid thing is.
If you need to travel, for instance to expect a new remote production site, a potential acquisition, getting to know well something up somewhere where you have interests, it's not wrong at all. Travel just to show up in the office, like a religious act, a ritual probably to justify RTO policies needed by the company to stay alive not because they need people in the office but because they live on cities and with WFH as the default, having already lost industries with '80s globalization, cities are simply dead with their Barnum circus including therein Starbucks that have no substantial reason to exist in business without the "ritual, polite, city-stile suit and tie/tailleur" way of living.
This act means a thing: Starbucks is a no future company, desperately attached to a past model that can't exists anymore, so having no substantial reason they switch to rituals, imposing them on their own, chiefs included, to trying keeping up.
We don’t know how often he will use this corporate jet. They are going to stand up a remote office with his own assistant. He could very well be in Seattle once a week and everything else handled via Zoom.
That's not the point, is not a matter of frequency, how many miles or so, it's a matter of WHY showing up in a office if your work could be done from remote, even in the company jet, reading their news? Why having an office at all, if that's not needed in modern time, since we haven't paper anymore and so we do not need a unique physical place to work and keep a paper archive?
My unproven response is that's simply a ritual because Starbucks will die without modern cities, or will die without mid/high income office workers with a certain mindset who like being in places like Starbuks. A cohort of people who will change mindset if WFH.
Did you see the impact of the "covid" switch on airlines, hotels NOT due to the lack of tourist but due to the change in working travelers, with conferences moved to remote meeting, business trips much reduced due to remote meetings and so on? That's the point: could Starbucks live without the office, not it's own office, but the office model, or the modern city model, since most factories are not in cities anymore and in modern city the economy, at least in the west is essentially driven by the tertiary sector and could such modern city model live?
My personal take it's a double no. I expect cities slowly evolve in ghetto's for poor and desperate people, a cohort not likely to buy Starbucks, and so despite the substantial ritual of "being in an office at least some days per week", their business model is doomed IMVHO, not tomorrow morning, things do change slowly, but in not much years in the future anyways, rituals do work only a bit, if the economy underneath is flawed they can keep things up for a bit more, but not save the game.
“ could Starbucks live without the office, not it's own office, but the office model, or the modern city model, since most factories are not in cities anymore and in modern city the economy, at least in the west is essentially driven by the tertiary sector and could such modern city model live?”
Plenty of people go to Starbucks that don’t live in big cities. Lots of rural people love SB and those who live in towns of 20-30k or less even.
“ Did you see the impact of the "covid" switch on airlines, hotels NOT due to the lack of tourist but due to the change in working travelers, with conferences moved to remote meeting, business trips much reduced due to remote meetings and so on?”
Yes and it was a shame because we never should have shutdown.
“ A cohort of people who will change mindset if WFH.”
People still went to Starbucks during the shutdown.
> Plenty of people go to Starbucks that don’t live in big cities. Lots of rural people love SB and those who live in towns of 20-30k or less even.
People in small or medium cities I do not know, but rural people I doubt for a simple reason: where is SB outside cities? To sustain their costs they need a certain size, not available in spread area, while the small Old Joe pub perfectly can.
> Yes and it was a shame because we never should have shutdown.
I agree about the shutdown, but I'm not talking about it but SINCE it or the fact many realize that there is no damn need to meet in person for countless of activities from the till today simply decide there is no sense doing in-person conferences and so on. That's the impact I'm talking about, of course airlines for cargoes have compensate much of the loss because we still need to move goods for a distance that a cargo is the cheapest not only the fastest option, tourism still exists (and that's perfectly fine) but no need to move for many business activities.
> People still went to Starbucks during the shutdown.
No doubt, but when you decide to leave the city, perhaps a very expensive and even very small apartment for a home in a nice place with plenty of nature, a nice garden, a nice veranda depending on the climate, why going to a luxury bar when you can have it at home, without the need to dress and with anything you like done as you like? Restaurants it's another thing, you go to eat something you do not typically cook at home, but a bar? I'm Italian, living in France, my cappuccino is definitively better than a SB one, I do not need to register myself, I only need the good roasted coffee and some sufficiently fat milk. Why bother to get dressed and go somewhere if I can just open a door and have a better alternative? In a dense city, full of noise, things are different but in nature with plenty of space I can have friends at home, outside, inside, in both in total comfort.
The fact that you are Italian and not familiar with American habits nor a Native American makes it hard for me to relate people’s obsession with SB with you. Sorry
It's not really about the jets. Rank and file employees are asked to RTO on their dime (usually) while executives have the choice of living elsewhere and having their transportation covered by the company. That's horribly unfair.
> Its not uncommon at all for commuting by jet to be the standard
Companies (F500s and below) are increasingly moving away from this for efficiency and cost reasons, but I agree with you that it's a bit of a nothingburger.
Meanwhile the same HNers complaining about Niccols contract are the same ones who oppose the unrealized capital gains tax proposal that literally only affects people with $100M and above in undeployed capital
First $100M, then when that's not enough it'll be $50M, then $10M, then $1M, then $500k. The definition of "rich" will keep being adjusted down.
And for what? So politicians can spend it on some photo-op project for themselves? Maybe sending "aid" to other countries (bullets and bombs)? Using it to spy on it's own citizens and quell dissidents? Surely individuals can on average invest the money more productively.
Manufacturers want to offload the customer service as it's extremely expensive as well as limit liability. That's why dealers exist and will continue to exist.
I believe most electric cars have a battery level indicator—after all, that is basically your fuel, and it's very, very important to know how much you have left.
In this case a photo wouldn't change anything. "According to the final receipt, the customer gave the Model 3 back to Hertz with the battery 96% full, the exact same state of charge it was picked up with."
> Ross was smeared with unprosecuted, false allegations of planning murder-for-hire that never occurred, were never proven, never ruled on by a jury, and were ultimately dismissed with prejudice.
>The district court found by a preponderance of the evidence that Ulbricht did commission the murders. The evidence that Ulbricht had commissioned murders was considered by the judge in sentencing Ulbricht to life and was a factor in the Second Circuit's decision to uphold the sentence.
