What is the real purpose of the firm: creating value or capturing it?

In this episode of The Value Creators Podcast, Hunter Hastings is joined by Ashutosh Garg to explore one of the most fundamental misunderstandings in modern business thinking—the confusion between value creation and value capture. While traditional economic and management frameworks emphasize profit extraction, pricing power, and competitive positioning, Ashutosh explains why these ideas can mislead firms away from their true role in the economy.

The conversation reframes the firm as a value creation system, where profit is not the goal but the result of successfully serving customers. Together, they unpack how focusing on value capture leads to short-term thinking, distorted incentives, and weakened customer relationships, while a value creation mindset unlocks long-term growth and resilience.