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Personally, I don’t care that FB puts profits over people. That’s what I expect. They are a public corporation. FB’s board has a legal obligation (fiduciary res

Personally, I don’t care that FB puts profits over people. That’s what I expect. They are a public corporation. FB’s board has a legal obligation (fiduciary responsibility) to make money for shareholders. Capitalism may suck, but it’s the law. Speaking of the law, Google’s abuses listed in this thread are what gall me. In Gulliver’s travels, the Lilliputians don’t strongly punish a common thief. You can just build a higher fence to thwart them. They severely punish “white collar” crimes. Outsmarting those criminals may prove impossible. We now have some of the greatest minds of our generation figuring out how to enrich Google even if it means breaking anti-trust/anti-collusion laws and even just basic breach of contract. I get that Google is a huge company and not all bad, but its primary revenue model is so morally bankrupt, I question how anyone can justify working there.

twobitshifter 5y ago
Fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits is a myth. It’s something that businesses hide their unethical behavior behind, but there’s no law that requires it according to the US Supreme Court. https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations-obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...
- Hnrobert42 5y ago
  Your link doesn’t really support your argument. Your link argues that pursuit of profit does not fulfill the fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. My contention was that a fiduciary responsibility exists. That contention is not contested by your article.
- hcurtiss 5y ago
  True, but there definitely is a fiduciary duty, and shareholder derivative lawsuits for breach of that duty are definitely a thing. They are usually substantiated by irresponsible decisions producing low returns. The analysis is complicated, but in the end, the more poorly the company you are managing performs due to your deliberate decisions, the more likely you are to elicit a shareholder derivative suit. Generally speaking, the best way to keep your shareholders happy is to make them money. In my view, this is as it should be. I’d rather executives in public companies not use my money to pursue their own personal moral crusades. They can use their own money to do that. As can I.
  - twobitshifter 5y ago
    The shareholder lawsuits will go nowhere according to the business judgment rule, unless the board is engaged in illegal behavior. If Google chose not to collude with Facebook or lie to their customers about providing the best price, shareholders would have no cause to sue. Now that this has come to light, they may be more likely to sue if it’s deemed that information about project Jedi was withheld from shareholder reports and that information was important to understanding Google’s returns in banner ad auctions.
_bkyr 5y ago
> FB’s board has a legal obligation (fiduciary responsibility) to make money for shareholders. Capitalism may suck, but it’s the law. What US law states that the board of any company has to make money for shareholders? I've tried finding it but haven't been able to. So what happens when a company fails? Does the board get prosecuted? Facebooks - Board of Directors - Mark Zuckerberg - Sheryl Sandberg - Peggy Alford - Marc L. Andreessen - Andrew W. Houston - Nancy Killefer - Robert M. Kimmitt - Peter A. Thiel - Tracey T. Travis Alphabet - Board of Directors - Larry Page - Sergey Brin - Sundar Pichai - John L. Hennessy - Frances Arnold - L. John Doerr - Roger W. Ferguson, Jr. - Ann Mather - Alan R. Mulally - K. Ram Shriram - Robin L. Washington
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Note that for business, governing law is virtually always state law, both legislation and common (case) law. The most relevant law will be in Delaware (overwhelmingly popular for incorporation for its "business-favourable" climate), New York, and California. Semi-related tangent: in going through US Library of Congress classifications, under US case law, by an extreme margin the most detailed classifications of state law are for New York and California (I forget offhand which leads). I believe Pennsylvania and Florida are also among the larger. To an extent this is a synthetic artefact (classification schemas are created by librarians), though it probably reflects underlying complexity within the respective domains.
saxonww 5y ago
> FB’s board has a legal obligation (fiduciary responsibility) to make money for shareholders. Capitalism may suck, but it’s the law. This is often repeated but is (generally) incorrect. There's a lot of writing out there about how this is bs, e.g. [0]. People certainly think and act like this is the case, so the end result is often the same, but this is not good-natured corporate governors being helpless before the law, it's profit-motivated people being ruthless. [0] https://evonomics.com/maximizing-shareholder-value-dumbest-idea/ https://evonomics.com/maximizing-shareholder-value-dumbest-i...
- Hnrobert42 5y ago
  Your link doesn’t really support your argument. Your link argues that pursuit of profit does not fulfill the fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. My contention was that a fiduciary responsibility exists. That contention is not contested by your article.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Well google needs to not complain then when the government comes looking around for anti-competitive practices or when they get broken up. Of the FAANG companies they could all pretty easily be split up easily into 3+ companies to compete in the social/advertising spectrum.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

twobitshifter 5y ago

Fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits is a myth. It’s something that businesses hide their unethical behavior behind, but there’s no law that requires it according to the US Supreme Court. https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations-obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

Hnrobert42 5y ago
Your link doesn’t really support your argument. Your link argues that pursuit of profit does not fulfill the fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. My contention was that a fiduciary responsibility exists. That contention is not contested by your article.
hcurtiss 5y ago
True, but there definitely is a fiduciary duty, and shareholder derivative lawsuits for breach of that duty are definitely a thing. They are usually substantiated by irresponsible decisions producing low returns. The analysis is complicated, but in the end, the more poorly the company you are managing performs due to your deliberate decisions, the more likely you are to elicit a shareholder derivative suit. Generally speaking, the best way to keep your shareholders happy is to make them money. In my view, this is as it should be. I’d rather executives in public companies not use my money to pursue their own personal moral crusades. They can use their own money to do that. As can I.
- twobitshifter 5y ago
  The shareholder lawsuits will go nowhere according to the business judgment rule, unless the board is engaged in illegal behavior. If Google chose not to collude with Facebook or lie to their customers about providing the best price, shareholders would have no cause to sue. Now that this has come to light, they may be more likely to sue if it’s deemed that information about project Jedi was withheld from shareholder reports and that information was important to understanding Google’s returns in banner ad auctions.

_bkyr 5y ago

> FB’s board has a legal obligation (fiduciary responsibility) to make money for shareholders. Capitalism may suck, but it’s the law. What US law states that the board of any company has to make money for shareholders? I've tried finding it but haven't been able to. So what happens when a company fails? Does the board get prosecuted? Facebooks - Board of Directors - Mark Zuckerberg - Sheryl Sandberg - Peggy Alford - Marc L. Andreessen - Andrew W. Houston - Nancy Killefer - Robert M. Kimmitt - Peter A. Thiel - Tracey T. Travis Alphabet - Board of Directors - Larry Page - Sergey Brin - Sundar Pichai - John L. Hennessy - Frances Arnold - L. John Doerr - Roger W. Ferguson, Jr. - Ann Mather - Alan R. Mulally - K. Ram Shriram - Robin L. Washington

dredmorbius 5y ago
Note that for business, governing law is virtually always state law, both legislation and common (case) law. The most relevant law will be in Delaware (overwhelmingly popular for incorporation for its "business-favourable" climate), New York, and California. Semi-related tangent: in going through US Library of Congress classifications, under US case law, by an extreme margin the most detailed classifications of state law are for New York and California (I forget offhand which leads). I believe Pennsylvania and Florida are also among the larger. To an extent this is a synthetic artefact (classification schemas are created by librarians), though it probably reflects underlying complexity within the respective domains.

saxonww 5y ago

> FB’s board has a legal obligation (fiduciary responsibility) to make money for shareholders. Capitalism may suck, but it’s the law. This is often repeated but is (generally) incorrect. There's a lot of writing out there about how this is bs, e.g. [0]. People certainly think and act like this is the case, so the end result is often the same, but this is not good-natured corporate governors being helpless before the law, it's profit-motivated people being ruthless. [0] https://evonomics.com/maximizing-shareholder-value-dumbest-idea/ https://evonomics.com/maximizing-shareholder-value-dumbest-i...

Hnrobert42 5y ago
Your link doesn’t really support your argument. Your link argues that pursuit of profit does not fulfill the fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. My contention was that a fiduciary responsibility exists. That contention is not contested by your article.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Well google needs to not complain then when the government comes looking around for anti-competitive practices or when they get broken up. Of the FAANG companies they could all pretty easily be split up easily into 3+ companies to compete in the social/advertising spectrum.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]