Corporate Games

Life is too complicated for humans to understand in full so we play games in hopes that it'll lead to good outcomes. Every company has a game and we should all be very interested in figuring out that the rules are. Rules of the game outline how a player wins or loses, gains points and how they can be disqualified from the game. How is it possible to be playing a game without being aware of it? It's not. If you're not playing the game you are part of it as an NPC.

Communism and Capitalism are games.

What is the Capitalism game? People organize themselves into hierarchies governed by contracts with aim of producing some good or service for the sake of generating as much profit as possible (max profit = PQ - c). A successful firm will develop a game for its participants to play that generates profit. There might be a game that serve the firm better but the firm knows the current game has worked in the past. Firms may fail when the game no longer generates the desired benefits. A firm must evolve the game it plays if it wants to continue to succeed over the long term. We all live longer, eat better and are generally happier when we play the Capitalism game. There's another game, Communism, that can also be played. Taking it too seriously leads to tyranny, mass starvation and arbitrary imprisonment.

Firms within the same industry play similar games.So what is the finance game? Small aspects of finance require high level math and deep familiarly with thousands of financial products and regulations but the majority of the money in finance is in safest and most boring versions of the following: stocks, options, bonds and mutual funds. Unlike in manufacturing, revenue are not unlocked by overcoming design, engineering and logistical obstacles. The most common obstacles in finance are take form of prisoner's dilemma game series. Both sides agree to a board set of actions and outcomes but the details are left vague to allow all parties to fulfill their commitments to the best of their ability - however that also means that both sides are left vulnerable to the quirks, incompetence and character flaws of the other once a deal is signed. If both sides cooperate in good faith, the deal is done and everyone splits the benefits. If either side shirks for any reason, the other side will lose trust and shirk as well. Both side will then be locked in a series of low benefit uncooperative equilibriums.

The game is getting projects done and the most important factor for getting projects done is trust because it's the only way to obtain true competency when everyone has large incentives to lie. You need to have trust in-order to procure the project, you need trust among the working teams in-order to execute the project and you trust to get the advice needed to prevent a disaster.

So networking is about getting the relationships and competencies you need to get shit done. It's also about advertising your competencies and willingness to form relationships to others. A firm with a well networked and competent workforce can execute on a lot of deals and make a ton of money. MS expands its network it gets to make more deals and make more money.

So interesting.