The military can afford to learn. You can't do that in a business.
are you literally saying that businesses cannot afford to learn?
Businesses must afford to learn. Under capitalism, that's the job description. Those that fail to learn... just fail.
The entire reason for the existence of a market is to provide information. Buyers and consumers exchange information, coming to an agreed market price, if you're out of the loop, sorry. This was capitalism in 1790. This is still capitalism in 2026. Not much has changed in that regard.
The military can piss away millions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of hours, and it is not an existential situation. Oh, we bought an airplane that is broken 1/2 of the time vs. the 10% of the time we budgeted for. No big deal. A business where an investment failed like that would be in trouble. In the military, they just take that as a lesson and move on (we shouldn't buy that again, or we should not use that process the next time).
Likewise with people. Hire someone, train them for 6 months, find out they cannot do the work. The military will retrain that person. Most businesses can deal with situations like that without going broke. If you ever have a spare hour, research how the Navy selects commanding officers for aircraft carriers. The select 5 for each future opening. All highly qualified pilots with demonstrated leadership potential. Then they send them to Nuclear school. 1 Year. Then another school for a year. One or two might get a carrier XO slot, one of those will get a command. The others, they just retire them. Crazy investment. No business would do that.
The military can piss away millions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of hours, and it is not an existential situation.
Meta and it's pursuit of VR would like to have a word.
Crazy investment. No business would do that.
My dad was in a management training program in the 1980s that sound very much like you are describing. e.g. 100s of people start the program for maybe 20-30 slots. Everyone went through the same process for fairness and to identify who should move on.
Comments
are you literally saying that businesses cannot afford to learn?
Businesses must afford to learn. Under capitalism, that's the job description. Those that fail to learn... just fail.
The entire reason for the existence of a market is to provide information. Buyers and consumers exchange information, coming to an agreed market price, if you're out of the loop, sorry. This was capitalism in 1790. This is still capitalism in 2026. Not much has changed in that regard.
I was rather loose with my terms.
The military can piss away millions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of hours, and it is not an existential situation. Oh, we bought an airplane that is broken 1/2 of the time vs. the 10% of the time we budgeted for. No big deal. A business where an investment failed like that would be in trouble. In the military, they just take that as a lesson and move on (we shouldn't buy that again, or we should not use that process the next time).
Likewise with people. Hire someone, train them for 6 months, find out they cannot do the work. The military will retrain that person. Most businesses can deal with situations like that without going broke. If you ever have a spare hour, research how the Navy selects commanding officers for aircraft carriers. The select 5 for each future opening. All highly qualified pilots with demonstrated leadership potential. Then they send them to Nuclear school. 1 Year. Then another school for a year. One or two might get a carrier XO slot, one of those will get a command. The others, they just retire them. Crazy investment. No business would do that.
Meta and it's pursuit of VR would like to have a word.
My dad was in a management training program in the 1980s that sound very much like you are describing. e.g. 100s of people start the program for maybe 20-30 slots. Everyone went through the same process for fairness and to identify who should move on.