Private firms are entertainingly idiosyncratic in ways only founder-powered public firms barely approach. The other big one I find entertaining is Dr Bronner’s soap which has a massive label full of dense text that is totally stream of consciousness sentences. Amazing.
Perhaps it’s a characteristic of closed groups. SQLite has its moral code that is the Ten Commandments++. Good stuff.
Weird story ... Dr Bronner also appeared in the greatest unreleased movie ever made. With Bill Murray and Dan Ackyroyd and Liz Taylor's ex husband. And it was the only movie Dr Bronner appeared in according to imdb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0111462/
“Liz Taylor’s ex-husband” is extremely vague…
Eddie Fisher (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Fisher)
The film also has loads of actors from the 1950s/1960s golden age. It was made in 1984 so for some it was their final roles.
If a public co CEO acts differently than others and then underperforms the market, shareholders then look at rhe idiosyncrasy as a bad thing. So they naturally all start to act like each other. Buffett had a similar idea he termed the institutional imperative.
If you’re the private owner/CEO you just get to be steered by the customer, and can even stop growing if you want.
> Larry would do these big usability studies and demonstrate beyond any shred of doubt that nobody can understand that frigging website, but Bezos just couldn't let go of those pixels, all those millions of semantics-packed pixels on the landing page. They were like millions of his own precious children. So they're all still there, and Larry is not.
https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611
I imagine that Dr Bronner's unhingedness is a net asset for the brand. I always prefer to buy things that seem less sterilized by corporateness.
Actually had no idea Dr. Bronner's was this weird. The guy started it as a tax-exempt religious organization!
Dr Bronners is local to me and they are very active in the burner scene (I believe the founder is an OG burner). I have a few friends who work there and Bronners often has a presence at local burner events (and Burning Man) -- notable because these are environments where commercial expression is generally forbidden. Yet they sometimes get a pass, I think because they embody the burner spirit and often supply a needed service (showers) totally free and in a way that fits in with the culture. It is the most guerilla marketing you ever saw and I would not be suprised if that wasn't their intent -- rather its just the company gifting itself and embodying the spirit of the ten principles.
They remind me a lot of Valve in that they are able to chart their own path and find success.
Bronners certainly isn't without its problems as a company. But I find it to be very inspirational that companies can find success without having to devolve into the bland milquetoast mediocrity that feels like 95% of US business culture. We need more people being visibly, authentically, and unashamedly weird.
Haha my friend buys that stuff and the label text reminds me of Timecube.
Dr. Bronner lost his family in the Holocaust and it seems to have broken his brain a little.
"After escaping from a mental institution in 1945, Bronner went into business"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Bronner's_Magic_Soaps
I don't imagine doing time in a 1940s mental institution did his brain much good either.