It's almost never good business to optimise for profit. Or, perhaps more accurately to optimise for short term profit. For example I can maximise profit by fir

It's almost never good business to optimise for profit. Or, perhaps more accurately to optimise for short term profit. For example I can maximise profit by firing all the staff, but continuing to collect subscription revenue for a couple years. Lots of profit, perhaps even "more profit", but a dead business. We spend money on all sorts of things, at the cost of immediate profit. Staff bonuses, end-of-year lunch, social donations, R&D, all come off the bottom line. Now, you can argue that we do it to stay in business, and a business that exists infanitly creates infinite profit, in which case the goal of business is to stay in business. Or perhaps profit is best served by keeping staff forever, in which case the odd benefit increases profit. Profit is important, without it a business will fail - but if that's the _only_ metric then its a very cold unpleasant place to work.