Billionaire Executive Manoj Bhargava Has One Warning For Entrepreneurs

Manoj Bhargava is an Indian-American billionaire, entrepreneur, and businessman, most famous for having created the popular brand of 5-Hour Energy drinks in 2004. Seeing as the caffeinated beverage sector is one of the best performing industries out there, the success of this brand should come as no surprise. After all, America is a nation fueled by caffeine. Regardless, Bhargava has recently made headlines after issuing a dire warning to his fellow entrepreneurs: stop chasing profits. The reason? Well, he believes that in chasing profits businesses often disregard creating a good products and services.

However, his warning for entrepreneurs in chasing profits doesn't end there. Instead, it actually ties into a larger danger stemming from the psychological phenomena used for decision making called groupthink. According to Britannica, groupthink is defined as a "mode of thinking in which individual members of small cohesive groups tend to accept a viewpoint or conclusion that represents a perceived group consensus, whether or not the group members believe it to be valid, correct, or optimal." The reason Bhargava believes this is dangerous is because it can lead company executives to come to a group consensus around prioritizing profits as opposed to entertaining dissenting or alternative ideas that could lead to developing a more effective product. Ultimately, Bhargava believes that putting profits over making a quality product will inevitably lead to a company's financial demise down the line.

In this current era of late stage capitalism, businesses tend to prioritize chasing profits over everything. This can be seen playing out in real time with the situation surrounding Boeing's poor construction of airplanes that was aired out by internal whistleblowers in 2024. For those unfamiliar with this fiasco, check out how Boeing's turbulence could cause airfares to skyrocket. Regardless, Boeing's relentless pursuit of prioritizing profits over producing quality, efficient airplanes not only put people's lives in danger, but ultimately ended up destroying the financial stature of the company once news broke to the public about the situation.

Think about it like this: the company must have had a multitude of meetings amongst high level executives where they all came to a group consensus that making money was more important than making a quality product. Even if certain people amongst the group believed that this would lead to massive issues down the line, their opinions were ultimately stifled by instead coming to the harmonious group conclusion that chasing profits should remain the highest priority. That said, Manoj Bhargava believes that building a successful business ultimately comes from making a great product, and by doing so, profits will come regardless. However, by putting profits above making a quality product, you're just going to land your company in a bad financial situation like Boeing.

Groupthink as a concept was first introduced to the masses by a man named Irving Janis in 1972. Janis was a psychologist who began his career journey studying psychology at the University of Chicago, and from there went on to get his PhD at Columbia University. However, it wasn't until he became a faculty member of the psychology department at Yale that ideas began to formulate which eventually led him to create the theory of groupthink. After intensively researching and studying group decision making, he published a revolutionary study in 1972 titled "Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes."

In this study, amongst other issues, he spoke extensively about why groupthink is harmful along with a number of reasons to cement his findings. But in an effort to briefly summarize why he came to this conclusion, it's largely because Janis believed the practice undermines or suppresses critical thinking and potentially successful alternative ideas by instead opting to come to a harmonious group consensus. That said, it's easy to see how people can quickly fall into this trap in a group setting. As human beings, we all would rather have peace than conflict. This being the case, when trying to reach a consensus in a group, it's much easier to just go along with the majority opinion instead of vocalizing alternatives. However, by opting to take the easy route, you run the risk of inciting a multitude of negative consequences in the future.