An annual event honoring three corporate leaders who have, by their direct power and by their influence on their companies' cultures, set a standard for "80% Capitalism". This is an approach to business wherein one pursues traditional capitalist goals - maximize profits, maximize growth, etc - but stops short of selling one's soul and raping the countryside to get there.
Winners would be those leaders who do things like: give their employees a bit more time off, pay a bit more to keep their labor force local, have larger than average philanthropy programs, build beautiful buildings rather than cheap ones, share profits a bit more equitably between executives and the rest of the labor force, refuse customers who are obviously going to create massive headaches for their staff, don't drive BMWs with vanity plates, take time to study where their waste products go, provide good benefits to their employees, donate used equipment to local schools, pay for employees to volunteer in their community, volunteer in their community themselves, throw birthday parties for the janitors, don't tell lies to their investors, don't believe so firmly in cost-benefit analyses that place a dollar value on human suffering, genuinely want their customers to be happy, occasionally let themselves be seen slacking, stock their lunchrooms with pinball machines.
Each award would be a gold statuette of Larry Fucking Ellison's bleeding, severed head.-- egads, Mar 05 2004 rich list http://www.forbes.c...&category2=categoryzanzibar check the list [engineer1, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004] Hmm -- though I'm no fan of Ellison, I think there's a bit of "Let's All" here.-- theircompetitor, Mar 05 2004 ahmmm....what executive on earth would want to win a prise like that? aren't all those gestures you mentioned above equivalent to some weakness when it comes to a business-man ?-- sweet, May 18 2004 i initially thought this said Cannibalistic Restraint Awards. that's a better idea than this, which is basically a rant.-- xclamp, May 18 2004 Yeah, winning a prize like that would be akin to admitting one is a wussie.-- Aerythes, May 19 2004 IKEA is owned by Bill Gates? My god, is nothing sacred?-- spacemoggy, May 19 2004 Zanzibar that information is only due to the weak dollar, or maybe the joke on BBC radio 4 was incorrect. looking at Forbes Bill Gates is back on top.-- engineer1, May 19 2004 I suspect that Mr Ikea is "just" one of the richest men on earth as I'm sure the accolade must go to Bill Gates, by a long way.
Back to the point though, I have to agree with the idea of awarding this type of behaviour. I think it could be labled as Humanist Capitalism - profit for the benefit of the masses. Or Utopia. I believe this was also the ultimate aim of the communist regimes (minus the pinball!), but was crippled by corruption.-- sven3012, May 19 2004 Geesh, look at the Waltons. They're nothing like John Boy and Mary Ellen.-- RayfordSteele, May 19 2004 Zanzibar is on to something here. Veckans Affarer, a Swede(?) business news source, puts Kamprad at around 53 billion, which is 6 billion more than Gates. There is much dispute about how to calculate these things. It is also extremely unclear who owns and who controls IKEA's assets. Kamprad claims that the assets don't belong to him (if it were he would be taxed for it).
Gates's assets are certainly more liquid and easily counted.-- Laughs Last, May 19 2004 Ah, pinball machines! +-- DrBob, May 25 2004 Who would sponsor the awards?-- contracts, May 25 2004 random, halfbakery