"Ride or Die" Mindset

Definition: "Ride or Die" is a slang term from the world of Hip Hop music. It refers to the nature of a relationship in your personal life in which the other person/s will always sick by your side til the end.

When a company becomes successful it becomes increasingly concerned with infinite financial growth, rather than on maintaining the quality of the goods and services that it provides to customers. In our society there is a misconception that this is caused by capitalism, when in fact when Adam Smith spoke passionately about the “invisible hand” of capitalism several centuries ago the market was very different to what it is today. Companies were not considered persons, and their investors were not capable of avoiding accountability for recklessly forcing the management of a corporation to run the business into the ground.

Initially, the financial markets concerned the trading of debts. For example, person A might loan money to person B over a period of three months, but if person A had an immediate need for cash, they might sell the ownership of the debt to person C. Now, person B needs to repay person C. This is a situation that is somewhat effective, but it has some flaws, especially at that point in history when an unpaid debt could land a debtor in prison for failure to repay the loan.

If we want the economy to thrive, there needs to be a way for the financier and the entrepreneur to take on a bit more risk in exchange for the possibility of greater profits. And the way to achieve that, is to issue shares instead of taking out a loan. The advantage to the investor, is that they can be paid dividends in perpetuity. While the advantage to the entrepreneur is that they can potentially raise substantially more funds, which in turn may increase their profits and their likelihood of positive outcomes. There was also a disadvantage to the investors, which was that if the company was mismanaged and became insolvent, the investors would be liable to repay the debts from their own personal wealth.

However, this “disadvantage” was actually an advantage to the entrepreneur because it meant that the investors would be hurting themselves if they were grossly negligent in their leadership. That is, investors were forced to have a “ride or die” mentality. They were in a genuine partnership with the entrepreneur and employees. In our modern version of capitalism, however, companies generally have “limited liability” which means that the shareholders cannot be held accountable for the messes that they create. And the result is a toxic pit of vultures who bet on companies as if they are betting on racehorses. Wealthy investors have no need to be cautious because they can simply diversify their investments and hedge their bets. If nine irresponsible bets fail, one other irresponsible bet might enable them to recover from their losses.

This is not capitalism and it is not a free market when the wealthy are free to throw the company under the bus, which can damage the reputation and prospects of the entrepreneur and can leave vulnerable employees unable to afford their rent, mortgage, and/or other loan repayments. Capitalism can only truly exist where participants in the market are generally granted reasonable freedoms to participate in the market without being systematically victimised by those with greater power and wealth.

Divide By None is a “ride or die” investor in your success. Not in the exact same way as in the 1700s version of capitalism, but in a new modern way.

For example, we're getting sick of hearing about how fraudsters have recently been abusing copyright laws in order to steal revenue from YoutTube creators. We understand that this is partly due to the poorly written laws around DMCA, but that doesn't mean that we at DBN are powerless to stand up to these kinds of abuse. The main difference between us and YouTube is that our platforms are exclusively for the purpose of publishing creative content that was created with our tools. Therefore, it is much easier for us to determine which copyright claims are real and which are fraudulent.