Jobs had something to prove though. He was kicked out, brought back, he definitely wanted to ensure his legacy. But while I don't agree with it, I think it's harder to be an ethical company that makes it to a billion than a non ethical one. When shareholders are involved you don't have a choice really.. You're obliged to maximize their earnings.

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triceratops 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> You're obliged to maximize [shareholder] earnings.

One of the most pernicious and harmful lies of the past 50 years.

Management is obliged to act in shareholders' interests. Executives are paid in stock. Maximizing earnings makes the stock price go up, which makes executives more money personally. So they're happy to let everyone believe they are legally required to make the stock price go up.

There is no law or court precedent making it illegal for management to de-prioritize short-term profit as long as they aren't hurting the shareholders interests and advancing their own.

	▲	cm11 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, but also the "executives are paid in stock" by certain people. If the stock price goes up, of course the executive equity will be worth more, but also if the executives make the certain people happy, the certain people can increase and otherwise adjust the amount of stock. So the stock price can be much about maximizing those very large shareholding certain people. That the price also changes the value of the exec equity is a thing, but the package is straightforwardly modulated as needed whether the price is high or low.

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thewebguyd 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> You're obliged to maximize their earnings.

You're not though, legally anyway. Courts will generally not second-guess a board's business decisions so long as the board acted in "good faith" even if that decision results in loss for shareholders, or does something that does not maximize their returns.

Board just has to link the decision and the long term health of the company. But it's just that, health of the company which is legally distinct from the health or short-term desires of individual shareholders and investors.

	▲	skeeter2020 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Maybe a court won't, but there are lots of examples where activist investors have forced the CEO or board members out with a campaign focused on short(er) term results. And Wallstreet is notorious for only giving a public company 2 quarters to get anything done.

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pixelatedindex 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> You're obliged to maximize their earnings.

Sometimes I think it’s time to give shareholder supremacy a rest. If they don’t like what they own, they can sell it. But this is probably also why I’m not on a board of directors.

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thewebguyd 19 hours ago | parent [-]

Interestingly enough, Apple at one point had that attitude even under Cook.

> “When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI,” Cook said. “If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.”

That was back in 2014.

But I do agree, it's time to normalize telling shareholders where they can shove it. If they don't like it, they can sell.

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skeeter2020 19 hours ago | parent [-]

Ironically (and perversely) it's much easier to do this with exotic cap tables that keep voting rights and ownership effectively split. You needed a very valuable company to make this work and the most obvious example (Meta) is not exactly a beacon of corporate governance.

	▲	adastra22 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don’t see how this is the case? The CEO can absolutely tell the board to shove it. The board can’t micromanage the CEO - they don’t have the levers to do that. So their options are few, and pretty much all nuclear along the lines of firing the CEO. Is the Apple board going to fire Tim Cook for making iPhones accessible? If they did, they’d find themselves fired by the shareholders.

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saulpw 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> You're obliged to maximize their earnings.

This is not true. Fiduciary responsibility does not mean "maximize earnings". This one fiction has done more damage in the name of unfettered capitalism than anything else.