You can really breathe in San Jose
They’ve got a lot of space
There’ll be a place where I can stay
I was born and raised in San Jose
I’m going back to find some peace of mind in San Jose“Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” Hal David, lyricist, 1968
It may be a story about a smart business decision by a smart law firm, but macro-economically there is everything wrong with this tale. See what you think.
No flight of fancy: Law firm exports Houston’s cost advantages to Silicon Valley
Image: “Downtown San Jose, California, view from a plane,” Vladimir Menkov
On the micro level, the plane does make sense for this smallish law firm, but one of capitalism’s problems is how corporations grow and change until they are no longer run by entrepreneurs but by a managerial class of executive bureaucrats who have a greater interest in their own compensation plans than in their shareholders’ success. I speak from my experience as a mid-level corporate PR executive at a major multinational corporation who spent many hours being transported along with the top execs in one of the company’s private jets. I know how they were used (Care for a game of hearts?), and there is no way the cost can be justified. Sometimes, they were even used as a sort of soft bribe to influential foreign officials.
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Flying private works great for getting to places where commercial service takes a few hops and there is limited service available. But it’s really hard for me to see how they’re economical beyond charter/fractional ownership.
Private planes are luxurious in terms of the coachwork and food/beverage, usually, but I find them cramped and confining.
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Mobil had a fleet of 30-some planes, with the top execs traveling in spacious Gulfstraem aircraft that were by no means cramped.
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