When you buy a stock on the open market, the company doesn't get any of the money, it goes to whoever was the last person to own that stock. There is no built-i

When you buy a stock on the open market, the company doesn't get any of the money, it goes to whoever was the last person to own that stock. There is no built-in incentive for a company to seek to increase it's stock price except that current owners want to be able to sell higher than they bought. Once a company has gone public for the first time, it can't get any more fundraising from shareholders without issuing more fresh stock which would make existing shareholders very angry because it dilutes the value of those existing shares. Setting corporate policy with the goal of increasing the stock price doesn't encourage new investment, and it doesn't help the company at all, it just makes existing shareholders happy. But since the governing structure of basically every company says that shareholders are the exclusive decision makers, that's what happens, regardless of whether it's good for the company, customers, employees, or the market.