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At some point, every company's "how to spend the money" has to turn into "give it back to the shareholders and let them seed more ideas". Infinite growth is pre

• piva00 3y ago
  We can thank Jack Welch for making it popular to consider shareholders as the most important cohort of people to be rewarded when a business goes well... His way of managing businesses completely infests MBA programs around the world.
  • HWR_14 3y ago
    That's a different question. But at some point, Apple spending the money to expand into a new product line is less effective than giving money to shareholders and letting them invest the money.
    • DrScientist 3y ago
      Then why buy Apple shares if you don't want Apple to invest your money? Buy shares in a profitable company and then demanding that it channel all it's profits back to you isn't an investment - it's an attempt to grab a fruit (sic) of somebody else's earlier investment. I do agree that sometimes, if the company hasn't got any good ideas for investment, then the right thing is to give the money back. However, overall I think shareholder/financial short-term-ism is largely destructive - limiting companies ability to invest. But then those short term often shareholders don't have to pick up the cost of destruction - especially if they avoid paying tax ( the state/tax payer picks up the restructuring cost with unemployment benefit etc ).