Any non-zero sum game can be re-formulated in zero-sum game terms, this is a rule.
Give me example of any non-zero sum game, and I can prove that under the hood it is actually a zero-sum game.
The trivial proof is that profit/revenue pool available for Corporation is limited, and the main question is how that profit pool is to be divided among Labor (employees) and Capital (investors/shareholders).
The fundamental laws of mass/energy preservation equally apply to money - you can't create money out of thin air, it has to be taken from someone else (customer) and then redistributed (among suppliers/labor/investors/shareholders/tax man)
USA literally creates money out of thin air, there is no upper cap as they keep extending the ceiling.
This is how we have a CEO making $100b from a single company stock which would be impossible if it were a zero sum game.
Hype which is even more rarefied air, can create so much money without taking anything from the customers. Silicon Valley VC's create valuations for companies out of thin air and then triple it even without anyone ever seeing that money.
Attention which is unlimited in a way is a new form currency, which is why you see platforms being built up to get more eyeballs.
The rule you mentioned comes into play when taking into account players in the game i.e any game where you can add more players is guaranteed to become zero sum.
it is not zero-sum between two parties (as in if one party shows more love, there is a chance it will create more mutual love from the other party).
But, the problem can be reformulated as zero-sum in terms of time: Time is the ultimate scarce and zero-sum resource, you cannot create time, only redistribute.
The more time we spend with the loved ones, less time we have for other things like hobbies and work. Company wants people to spend maximum time on work and worker efficiency (so called "career growth"), and less time on personal life etc. For corporation - worker's attention is absolutely zero-sum game and they want maximum of worker's attention, on top of 9-5.
That's why they create more employee love by throwing benefits, free food and snacks, corporate parties so that they spend less time on personal matters and work more toward the company's goals.
Free time isn’t zero sum. An accountant and a plumber can create free time by trading services. If it would take a plumber five hours to file his taxes, he could instead fix the tax accountant’s sink in one hour in exchange for the tax accountant filing his taxes. Assuming the tax accountant can do so in one hour and would have taken five hours to fix his own sink, both profit by reclaiming four hours of time.
^ I don't think professional plumbers and accountants exchange services in kind for a living, last time I checked people use this thing called currency.
and this makes the zero sum, since the money plumber pays accountant, is the money he cannot spend on other things like groceries and vise versa.
It is not positive sum, in competitive market it is basically exchanging services, and each party has to agree on mutual value of services being exchanged otherwise no trade.
Accountant values his labor as 100/hr and plumber values his services as 100/hr and they simply exchanche services.
Because the price paid is somewhat less than the value derived. You might have been willing to pay him $110 and he might have been willing to walk away with $90. But regardless of whether you settle on a rate of $90 or $110 or split the difference at $100, a $20 positive sum is created.
You mention competitive markets, where surplus is reduced or almost eliminated. But most markets do not reach such a late stage level of optimization.
If "anything can be broken down to a zero sum game" just means "time is finite, react accordingly" that's all well and good. Kind of banal, though. I was hoping for something more theoretical...
Think of annual profit generated by company as a fixed pie. or total market as a giant pie.
Question is how to slice a pie between Labor and Capital?
Now we know that IT is a growing market, and next year pie will be bigger, much bigger. That's why Capital needs Labor to cooperate along and work as efficiently as possible to capture maximum slice of pie for the Corporation next year and the year after.
That's why they give variable compensation and give sense of ownership. Just by giving out 0.1% of shares, Capital is able to extract max value form Labor and make their pie grow at 30-40% per year.
Absolutely killer deal for Capital.
That's how zuckerberg et al become billionaires, while employees who created the money making machine are mere (multi)millionaires.
you join stage B startup and get 0.01% of company as ISO options, but you do the 100% of the work required to make product and grow company from $10M valuation to $10B valuation. Three orders of magnitude growth for Capital, while Labor get 1/1000 of that growth
it is zero sum when it comes to Labor vs Capital relationship.
Counter example to your claim: if giving out RSUs is not zero-sum, then why don't Companies give me as many RSUs as possible, since they are not losing anything and it is not zero-sum game, by your definition?
That is a purposefully bad take of "my definition"
Sure the RSUs available today are zero sum. The company has a finite value today, and thus your share of the compensation available today is a zero sum game across every participant in the corporation.
But your compensation _over time_ is not zero sum, as the value of the company can grow, both within the current market and as the current market grows _by your own definition._
Question to you: why shareholders are giving out RSUs in the first place? Are they doing it out of kindness of their heart?
If you look at the whole picture, you will see that “to align employees with company goals” is simply “to incentivize employees to make shareholders richer”.
Shareholders usually own 90+% of the stock, while employees ownership is in single percentages at best. That includes early employees.
The deal for Capital is very simple: give away few percents of stock and make Labor grind tirelessly to increase value of Capital by orders of magnitude.
Percentage wise everybody wins, both Labor and Capital (so called not zero sum game), in absolute terms however the distribution tells a different story.
Another counter-example:
Imagine startup fails or is acquired at decreased valuation: will be it zero sum or not?
Well, employees options are wiped out first, VC capital gets first claims to money pool, Founders have second claims after VCs (or would have made liquid in separate deals), while regular employees are the ones who screwed.
You can't say that some outcomes are zero sum and other outcomes are not. By the very fact that there are different possible outcomes proves it is not a zero sum game.
> Imagine startup fails or is acquired at decreased valuation: will be it zero sum or not?
It's not zero sum, the total sum changed over time as the company lost value. Non zero sum doesn't mean "value only goes up"
> Percentage wise everybody wins, both Labor and Capital (so called not zero sum game), in absolute terms however the distribution tells a different story.
Thank you for conceding my point. It is a non zero sum game. There's an argument to be made about that employees are not given their fair share of RSUs or options, but that is a wholly separate argument/debate and you weaken your point by trying to say it's a zero sum game.
Give me example of any non-zero sum game, and I can prove that under the hood it is actually a zero-sum game.
The trivial proof is that profit/revenue pool available for Corporation is limited, and the main question is how that profit pool is to be divided among Labor (employees) and Capital (investors/shareholders).
The fundamental laws of mass/energy preservation equally apply to money - you can't create money out of thin air, it has to be taken from someone else (customer) and then redistributed (among suppliers/labor/investors/shareholders/tax man)