Not all firms are bad. I know of one in Dallas that does stuff like Pixar did.

[DFW]

They heard of a guy who was a paraplegic from a wound in the Vietnam war. He was a chatroom buddy of someone
in the firm, and had cancer. He got so weak, he couldn't get to his desktop any more. The employee mentioned
this to the CEO, and the CEO told their IT department to send out an extra laptop to the guy to use in his
bed as long as he held on to life, and for his widow to keep afterwards. Recently, the same company sold a
copy of the Federalist Papers that some guy had found it at a flea market for $7. He was about to be sent to
Iraq, and wanted, if his find was genuine, to auction it off to have some money for his family while he was
gone, and if there was any left over, to put away for the education of his small children. The book brought,
including all commissions, something like $80,000, and the auction company waived their commissions (around
20% or so) so that the guy could keep the whole sum for his kids' educations.

Christie's and Sotheby's are huge bureaucracies, but this company is only about 400 or less employees, and
the top guys are hands-on types who can make decisions like this in a minute (and do).

[Schema Thing]

1. Is this the company that auctions the old movie posters?

[DFW]

2. Among other stuff

They have all sorts of departments. They have an unreal music department, too. If I had a million bucks
to spare, I could have bought the 12 string on which McGuinn recorded Mr. Tambourine Man. Also rare coins,
books, watches, fine art, even old fossils. I saw they recently had a fossilized full skull of a triceratops
(where do you even find something like that?). I don't know everyone there, but they guys who run it are really
generous types, not at all the snobby types you'd think to find in their positions.

[Schema Thing]

4. A freind of mine helped them get going photographing the old poster art...

...if we're talking about the same group, and I suspect we are. Original Vargas, Kirchner, etc. Unbelievably beautiful stuff.

[DFW]

5. That's an area I know nothing about

But I do know they have no problem with giving work to outside photographers for tricky stuff.

It does sound like the same group. If you know anything about the area you are working in,
you must get to see some incredible stuff pass through the office. I know that if I worked
in their music division and the 12 string guitar used to record Mr. Tambourine Man was
sitting in a room next door, you would have to put me in chains to keep my hands off it.

[Salviati]

3. Yeah, and if we had more regulations ...

to prevent corporate entities from behaving like sociopaths, they would likely not harm these firms at all. In fact it would likely help them, as their competitors would be forced to compete on a more level playing field.

[DFW]

6. You're probably right

But I think the bad guys are not companies with 400 employees that neither pollute nor
sell weapons, and order pizzas once a week for everybody, or send free laptops to dying
friends of employees. The sociopaths are the ones where the numbers are so big, the top
guys can siphon off billions, and suddenly think they have been bestowed by a higher power
with the right to take whatever they can take, and stomp all over the needs of anyone
and everyone.