A few years ago I found a comment by a millionaire that at first I thought was a great idea, how do you define what a CEO is and does?
Not a bad question, right? Especially when it comes to being a startup.
Normally the CEO moniker, Chief Executive Officer, used in big Fortune 500 companies and even some startups that want the same prestige might work, but as a startup, it just doesn’t quite fit, do you see the same thing?
I have a friend that has a startup and she uses the CEO title on her business card and her web site. She’s a startup. But seeing it on her card it just sounds so old fashion and stuffy, as if “bestowed” by oneself for others to see how you want to project your image. But is that the true focus of a business? To make yourself look good?
Not so accurate.
So, here’s my attempt in our current business climate to get to the heart of what a business CEO title is about.
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Image via Wikipedia
When you hear about entrepreneurs who start up new companies, you may not realize that our US history has stories to tell of entrepreneurs and what they went through. Below is an hour long speech about the supposed “Robber Barons” regarding steamships and railroads and both the US government’s subsidies of them and what it cost the US taxpayers. In some cases Congress STILL considered that some companies were “too big to fail” and kept using taxpayer money to keep thing afloat, but in the end, entrepreneurs won out.
If you want to read about Vanderbilt or Rockefeller, read the books “The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbit” and Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller.” On page 200 in the biography about Vanderbilt you see how investing in steam engine technology called the “walking beam engine” affected both fuel consumption and hull design, and with a smaller engine he was able to save valuable operating expenses and thus lower is costs thereby make more profit and/or lower prices to gain more market share.
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As an startup entrepreneur using a Mac there is one thing that puzzles me: How does one figure that the rich do not pay their fair share of society?
It really boils down to this: What do the rich really pay for?
Here’s the first part of the equation: According to Who Pays Income Taxes and how much? the top 10% of AGI (Adjusted Gross Income) taxpayers pay a WHOPPING 69.94% of our Federal governments bills! And that is for incomes OVER $113,799.00 based on IRS statistics, not the $250,000.00 number that is bantered around so much.
But what DO the rich do for us?
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What most people do not realize is that to start a business can be easy, but a government with laws and regulations can hinder and even prevent you from following your dream. It’s called the barrier to entry. How much does it cost, in time and money, for you just to get started selling your products and services, let alone sell and profit from your first sales?
Dozens of new criminal laws pass Congress every year. Many include prison time and heavy fines for conduct that most citizens would never guess is prohibited.
Here is a great infographic of our nations laws.
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Here is a short film clip of President Coolidge giving a short speech about his view of the economy. If you read history, we had just come out of World War I and President Wilson had kept our taxes high to pay for government spending during WWI. President Coolidge and Andrew Mellon’s economic policies helped create the Roaring Twenties by lowering taxes which increased tax revenues.
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Startup entrepreneurs have a unique history in the US compared with other nations. While our Native Americans had their way of life, the pilgrims brought with them a new idea on how to start a nation. They wanted to reengineer how a government works for the people. While we finally got it right with our Constitution and Bill of Rights, during the middle 1800s this new entrepreneurship took hold and gave us an enormous opportunity for growth.
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If you want to know about how the economy works, take a look at this video on how to get the economy growing again. Some of the sound affects are a little hokey, but that’s what it’s all about. We get ourselves turned around the right way.
If you’d like to read more about it, take a look at Ludwig von Mises Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle web site. You can even download a free PDF of the book from there.
But, if reading is not your thing, then watch the video.
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