The ability for us to make money in china is more important than your ability to generate satire

At least there aren't any mental gymnastics here, his reasoning is pretty clear and understandable from a CEO point of view.

? No mental gymnastics? Sure there are!

“Use this tech” implies the same tech as everyone else, including satire, no? What else could it mean? Oh, it could mean, “use this tech in only ways that are allowed by a totalitarian dictator, continuing to spread china’s government’s racism and hatred of certain minorities, and also normalize self-censorship globally”.

That’s really what it means-that it’s more important to the CEO that China should continue suppression of its people and also to exert the maximum influence it can socially on the world, than it is too stop specifically midjourney in China.

Plenty of mental gymnastics required there.

Let's everyone pull out of doing business with all Chinese in China...

and see how well that works in altering the course if history.

I see that worked pretty well for North Korea already :^)

Principles are pretty important to some people, too.

This comment sounds clever but makes no sense. The CEO can and must apply his principles to the company if he wants to consider himself moral under his own code.

Just think it through; is he morally bound to actively pump out lies and propaganda if that increases profits?

> is he morally bound to actively pump out lies and propaganda if that increases profits?

That's why I said "within legal restrictions". Ethics is not something defined for companies, even though we are led to believe that it is. It's for people.

He could resign on his personal beliefs, or get fired if he can't sustain the growth, of course, but that doesn't change the fact that the next CEO will probably do it.

Either you make money in China until the Chinese clone your tech and undercut you, or you don't make that money and they eventually clone and undercut anyway. Might as well enjoy the boost for a few months.

I don't like that we're self-censoring in the West in a way that furthers the ends and whims of authoritarian regimes, but hey, it's only business...

> you make money in China until the Chinese clone your tech and undercut you, or you don't make that money and they eventually clone and undercut anyway

Or you stand by something and innovate, while using Beijing trying to clone your tech as reason for Congress giving you an unfair advantage. Holz has chosen his side. I’m now in favour of unfairly advantaging his competition.

Quite. And that, too, is only business ;-)

While this may be true in a general sense in that most companies have bylaws that does not set out another purpose, and that in theory shareholders could go after a board, and so indirectly a CEO, that does not seek to maximise profit, this is overly simplistic.

The CEO is beholden to the directions of the board. The board has wide latitude to act within the rather wide remit of acting within the best interests of the shareholders (as a group, not individual shareholders). It's generally difficult to go after a board for setting direction that does not outright maximise profit other than by simply voting them out as long as there's some reasoning to justify why it is beneficial to the mission of the company to do something. That might e.g. be to ensure the reputation of the company.

So as long as the CEO acts within what the board wants of them, and as long as the board maintains the trust of a majority of shareholders and aren't outright and blatantly violating the corporate bylaws (which can also specify other priorities than just profit), they can - and often do - decide that other things than profit matters.

As such, blaming the CEO in isolation may not be justified. Maybe the board made him. But the company certainly has principles in the form of its bylaws and the AGM and boards interpretation of them. The just might not be nice ones.

What board? Midjourney has no investors. No shareholders.

He’s only beholden to himself. And proud of it.

Midjourney is an incorporated company. It has a board and at least one shareholder. Whether or not they're all the same person is irrelevant to the point made, which is that this annoying notion people keep bringing up when a CEO makes a choice that they're somehow inherently required to do what maximises profit is false.

> As such, blaming the CEO in isolation may not be justified. Maybe the board made him.

You made a general point. I agree with your general point.

That last statement seemed to me to be about Midjourney specifically.

In which case, because of Midjourney’s peculiar situation for this kind of company, it would have been inaccurate.

And even if said statement wasn’t about Midjourney specifically, considering the subject at hand, pointing out it’s peculiar situation seemed relevant.

But again, I totally agree that no, even though it’s often expected of them, CEOs aren’t inherently required to maximise profit.

It's not inaccurate, though. Midjourney, Inc. is a Delaware registered corporation. It has a board, and at least one shareholder. They can both be the same person as the CEO, but that doesnt change any of what I wrote.

I don't know, maybe you interpreted the last paragraph as making a specific claim about Midjourney, but it did not. It was part of the general point.

That's one theory. There's a competing theory that corporations have obligations to shareholders, customers, employees, and the community in which they operate. And as a practical matter, corporations can usually get away "doing the right thing" if they really want to, as it is good for the company's reputation in the long run, and therefore at least theoretically good for shareholders.

Depends on the company. Conscious Capitalism and the Infinite Game are great books on why that's not the best approach.

"the ability for people in China to use this tech is more important than your ability to generate satire."

The implication here being that the ability to generate a million waifu anime selfie blended pictures is somehow a crucial technology.

The only reason Putin is not off limit is because Russia's GDP is smaller than Canada's GDP.

Thats actually a pretty reasonable response. Its not endorsing the censorship, and it emphasises that not restricting certain generated content would hurt users.

Unlike social media which stores and distributes, Midjourney is helping generate content, so people can still make satire through other mechanisms pretty easily - and since Midjourney isn't a distribution platform its not hurting users ability to distribute satire.

> Thats actually a pretty reasonable response. Its not endorsing the censorship, and it emphasises that not restricting certain generated content would hurt users.

it's reasonable but it's just a purely capital-aligned choice -- the morals and ethics of it are beside the point.

They want China because it's a big market -- but Midjourney produces content -- especially political satire -- that is illegal in dozens of countries... apparently China deserves special attention.

I'll say it plain: They kowtow to China because China represents $$ for them. The "pretty-not-okay"ness is just a happy coincidence for the users who may become legal targets.

> emphasises that not restricting certain generated content would hurt users.

Being nice to person B threatening person A is not being nice to person A.