There were tax implications. Paying the top executives a gazillion dollars wasn’t attractive because that was also a gazillion dollars given to Uncle Sam. https

There were tax implications. Paying the top executives a gazillion dollars wasn’t attractive because that was also a gazillion dollars given to Uncle Sam. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15161755 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15161755 Another change since then was the rise of the corporate raider. Used to be that you could run a public company without profit as the primary motive. Parable of the Mexican fisherman, and such. (https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherman/ https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherma...) But now people like Carl Icahn (and Mitt Romney in his private sector days) actually hunt for companies that are not maximizing return to investors, and remake them into companies that do. Apple actually had to fend off Carl Icahn recently. (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/carl-icahns-2-billion-apple-stake-was-a-prime-example-of-investment-inequality-2016-06-07 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/carl-icahns-2-billion-apple...)