It will be interesting to see how many of those companies remain "incorruptible". Your new book seems a bit like a sequel to Jim Collins's 2001 book Good to Great. Several of the "great" companies including Circuit City, Fannie Mae, and Wells Fargo later ran into serious problems. And from an investor perspective, as a group they have underperformed the S&P 500.

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/good-to-great-jim-col...

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Boxxed 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> And from an investor perspective, as a group they have underperformed the S&P 500.

This should be kind of obvious -- if they are avoiding doing awful things in the name of money, then they are leaving something on the table. You can't have your cake and eat it too. This is why the real solution is some kind of governance/regulation, because otherwise the market incentivizes being awful.

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elictronic an hour ago | parent | next [-]

As a note, Wells Fargo is underperforming for doing terrible things and getting caught multiple times.

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mtoner23 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

well, eric's book tries to make the point that these good companies DO overperform the market. after reading the book this past week, im not convinced. feels like heavy selection bias.

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danielmarkbruce an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Actually you can have your cake and eat it too. Market incentives aren't awful in most cases. The worst incentives are actually stock standard owner/manager misalignment (or "principal agent problem") whereby the agents are short term oriented because they are comped that way.

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eries an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I want to appreciate you for this comment, even though I disagree with it, because this is a really articulate version of the conventional wisdom that I think all of us have imbibed since before we could talk.

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nradov 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't understand your comment. Companies like Netflix, Old Dominion Freight Line, Nvidia, Comfort Systems USA, and Intuitive Surgical have all significantly outperformed the S&P 500. What "awful" things have they done in the name of money?

	▲	bsammon an hour ago \| parent [-]
		https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Netflix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_Systems_USA#Anti-union... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitive_Surgical#Lawsuits Depending on your political leanings, you may pick and choose which of these you consider "awful". Didn't find anything in my five-minute scan for Old Dominion.

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an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]

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eries 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

yeah, this is very much the challenge with writing any kind of business book: the book is frozen in time yet the companies grow and change. I tried really really hard not to put any company up on a pedestal, or even make any forward-looking predictions, but merely to show how each company illustrates a specific concept from the book.