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Companies like Facebook, publicly traded, have a legal obligation to maximize profits for their shareholders. Private companies with investors are similarly obl
by danbruc 9y ago
Companies like Facebook, publicly traded, have a legal obligation to maximize profits for their shareholders. Private companies with investors are similarly obligated.
There is no promise that a company can make to its users that outweighs the fiduciary duty that obligates them to maximize profits by any means.
Not true. [1]
[1] https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8146/are-u-s-companies-legally-obligated-to-maximize-profits-for-shareholders https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8146/are-u-s-co...
- devmunchies 9y agoEven if it were true, couldn’t a company argue that they want to put users before shareholders to prevent a public fallout like we are seeing with Facebook? Which could be seen as risk management.
- danbruc 9y agoIf it were true, then there would have to exist at least some framework to judge what counts as maximizing profits. Maximizing the profit this quarter may require a vastly different course of actions than maximizing the profit over the next ten years. So depending on exactly what would fall under maximizing profits, this may or may not be a valid argument But fortunately we don't have to worry about that, the people writing laws are not all idiots and it would be a pretty stupid idea to put requirements into laws that are essentially impossible to fulfill due to a lack of psychic powers and time machines.