> The takeover by them and, relatedly, the finance folks has been disastrous for actual productivity and innovation.
The fact that so many companies play tricks with CAPEX and OPEX completely misses the point that almost all corporate spending should be seen as investment or spending to support investment at some level.
The past 50 years of business school has taught people that outsourcing your core competency is a good idea because it gets things "off the books" and makes quarterly reports look better. The end result was shifting huge swaths of our economy to a hostile country.
Here in tech, I've literally seen companies shift stuff into the cloud even though it's more expensive, because OPEX can be written off right away and they don't want CAPEX on the books, only for a year later to want to shift back because they decided it's now better to optimize for actual cashflow. It's infuriating.
The fact that so many companies play tricks with CAPEX and OPEX completely misses the point that almost all corporate spending should be seen as investment or spending to support investment at some level.
The past 50 years of business school has taught people that outsourcing your core competency is a good idea because it gets things "off the books" and makes quarterly reports look better. The end result was shifting huge swaths of our economy to a hostile country.
Here in tech, I've literally seen companies shift stuff into the cloud even though it's more expensive, because OPEX can be written off right away and they don't want CAPEX on the books, only for a year later to want to shift back because they decided it's now better to optimize for actual cashflow. It's infuriating.