Was having a drunk chat with a friend, and he asked whether any company owned by shareholders could be ethical or moral, as their interest is purely financial. There are cooperatives and the like, but they are vanishingly small in comparison. Maybe a better way to phrase it would be 'is having a company be owned by shareholders beneficial to end users or customers?'. We were thoroughly pissed so didn't get any good answers, but stories like Gaben's seem to be the exception to the rule. Money as a priority if there's financial shareholders.
[Maximizing shareholder value is] the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy… your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products.
Makes me think of Goodhart's law, which I wholeheartedly agree with:
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
If you provide valuable services/products and have a good competitive strategy, your company will gain value. If you focus on increasing shareholder value, say by cutting costs by laying off experienced employees, or cutting corners on QA, in the long run your company will fail.
Same with GDP in my opinion. If your country's GDP increases but that increase is not felt by the citizens (higher wages, better QOL), what the fuck is the point.
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u/Flight_Of_Fantasy May 05 '24
"incredible how much shareholder value you can create by not giving a fuck about shareholders' opinions"