That’s ideal but remember a company is made of thousands of shareholders - execs, employees, investors etc When the stock price starts going down / not growing

That’s ideal but remember a company is made of thousands of shareholders - execs, employees, investors etc When the stock price starts going down / not growing as it “should”, everyone is unhappy. Execs can leave, key employees can leave, and investors can launch an activist campaign. If the story is spun right even “weak” financial performance can lead to strong stock - look at Amazon. There was very little profit for years but that was because they were reinvesting in growth (and seeing results). So people believed and stock price went brrr.