CEO of a startup is not the same thing as CEO of a monopolistic predatory business.
I’m CEO of a punk rock band no one likes.
Should I be hated just because I lead an organization?
this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
124 points (86.0% liked)
Progressive Politics
2502 readers
154 users here now
Welcome to Progressive Politics! A place for news updates and political discussion from a left perspective. Conservatives and centrists are welcome just try and keep it civil :)
(Sidebar still a work in progress post recommendations if you have them such as reading lists)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
why the fuck does a rock band have a ceo
I said we sucked. It might explain some things.
I’m CEO of a punk rock band no one likes.
Respect the title, my dude. You may not use my business, but I get to run it poorly.
🤘
Hey now, some of us just haven't gotten the chance to find out! Drop the link!
Do you complain to people without a house about losing yours due to not being able to exploit cheap labor from other countries, especially ones with terrible labor practices overall?
I feel like you didn’t read the article you posted.
At what point is she exploiting cheap labor?
She used china because she needed production runs of less than 10% of the minimums American factories required. There were already tariffs on raw silicon. Man I don’t junk you read the article.
It's a nice dream to be able to start a small business, pay fair wages, use eco-friendly materials, source locally, pay yourself a shit salary to keep costs low, and not have any other backers hounding you to turn a profit at any cost. But that's what it is, a dream. You gotta start somewhere, somehow and hope you don't lose your soul along the journey.
You can get food grade silicone in America. There is even a place that does low-production parts near her. She chose to outsource to a Chinese company cause she doesn't want to pay American wages:
https://www.protolabs.com/services/injection-molding/liquid-silicone-rubber-molding/
Have you seen how big the busy baby is? Your link doesn’t have the mold volume needed for the bib. For the utensils? Sure. But the utensils without the bib is pretty pointless.
Perhaps you should reach out to her and let her know that she can produce in the US? Have you done that since you’re so concerned about her grift? You’d be able to get proof she’s a real proof of shit. Of course you’ll need to provide capital since hers is gone and you’ll want to make sure to get all of her quote history since she didn’t do her research. She’s so clearly lying and you’re the only one who can tell the truth.
It's not exactly hard to do... don't need to reach out to get the info:
https://www.importyeti.com/company/busy-baby
Here is her supplier:
No true Scotsmen with this guy. I bet all his clothes are made in china.
No they're not & I'm also not going on TV complaining about how I might lose farmhouse without being able to exploit cheap labor. Then having a bunch of lefties sharing it online acting like this proves Trump hates the average person.
Where on earth are you getting the idea that “the left” (however you define it I guess) Is suddenly sympathetic towards rich people and CEOs who exploit cheap labor?
The title is not original to the article. Claiming she is "exploiting cheap labor" is rather misleading. To quote a section of the article:
The other option, the one Trump wants, is a pipe dream: manufacturing her products in the US. Benike would prefer to manufacture here, too. But a mountain of logistics, near impossibilities, stand in her way.
Food-grade silicone, which she uses for her products, is not available domestically. When she looked into the cost of importing the material when she first started, it was more expensive than importing a finished product, and the prices have gone up since then. Manufacturing facilities in the US with the compression mold machines she needed require much larger runs than she can commit to. The minimum requirements for factories here was 20,000 – in China, she could do a couple thousand at a time.
Yeah but the only reason those supplies and services aren't available in the US is because China has all the manufacturing scale. It's not as if China is the only country that can make silicone.
If trump keeps to these tarrifs and importing silicone becomes too expensive then someone will open a factory to produce it here. Same with small scale molding. If there is truly a demand for something the market will find a way to produce it.
It may be more expensive because of higher labor standards, wages and environmental standards, but that just means it's getting closer to the true cost of the product, instead of the one subsidized by environmental destruction and labor exploitation.
Im by no means trying to defend our general reliance on Chinese manufacturing nor attempting to make a case rhat using their abused labor force is fine and good.
I am also very much not in the business of defending the ultra rich mega corpos legitimately exploiting anything and everything they can for profit.
I am only defending what appeaers to be an unfair and unnecessary attack of a persons character. It is true she is using Chinese manufacturing but if her words are to believed at her current scale bringing that to the US is impossible for her. I am not even remotely educated in any of these topics so i can do little more than read the article and respond but assuming her words are true then her actions are understandable.
If trump keeps to these tarrifs and importing silicone becomes too expensive then someone will open a factory to produce it here.
You're talking about a 6-10 year project before it produces anything; but we can't get the Commander in Cheese to stick to his word for 6 days.
6 years is way more than 6 days. It's longer than his presidency should be, but we're not even sure of that.
The left isn’t sympathetic. These are neoliberals. Completely different.
What part of "small business" do you not understand? Most SBOs are nowhere near the 1% and manufacturing wages in China are pretty competitive globally, not to mention their manufacturing infrastructure is the only in the world capable of handling certain build demands. Your perception of China seems ~20 years out of date.
Small capital is still capital and relies on labor exploitation. If your talking about manufacturing wages globally then you should be talking about that SBOs income globally too which would put them in the top 1%. If there were no labor exploitation and the revenue from the sale of the products were split evenly among the laborers the SBO would be payed far less and the manufacturing workers in China would be paid far more.
Good. I approve of this outcome.
Uplifting news
I wonder whom she voted for.
Reading the article would be a good way to find out
I did, but I'm not sure if I can believe her.
Given the number of flags in front of her big house... I'm guessing Trump.