Short answer: they depend on revenue from businesses, ads, etc, and that is going down or likely to. Long answer: many people naively think that it's all about

Short answer: they depend on revenue from businesses, ads, etc, and that is going down or likely to. Long answer: many people naively think that it's all about the money a company has, and these companies have a ton of money, so why are they laying off people when they could weather through the storm. While this feels like it should be the case, the answer is that it's a bit more complicated than that. Whether it should be more complicated or not is besides the point, sadly. Business health tends to be measured more in terms of cash flow, and in simple terms, more going out than is coming in is bad, even if you could deal with that for many years. There's also the difficulty for many of these big multinational companies that their cash reserves might not be in the right place, and moving them might incur significant taxes. Investors are theoretically investing for the prospect of future returns, and while with growth stocks this is in the form of increased share value, in the long term it's also about dividends which come from profit, and so investors want to see a long term profitable company. Also worth noting is that while, yes, CEOs are largely compensated in stock and therefore interested in seeing it go up, this is also good for the business in a general sense, as it makes it easier for them to raise money for things by selling stock. I don't necessarily agree with all of this, I have problems with the taxation issues, and I also think it's a bad thing for many employees, but my general point is that this is complicated and there are reasons for it, even if we might not understand or agree with them.