4 ms·

People - including some people who hold positions like CEO or sit on a board for a company - can care about things other than money. Companies can't, essentiall

by advael 3y ago

People - including some people who hold positions like CEO or sit on a board for a company - can care about things other than money. Companies can't, essentially by definition. This is intrinsic to how they are legally constructed

hot_gril 3y ago
They can't legally claim to care about something besides money (even this I'm unsure about), but if the leadership cares, they can steer the company a certain way.
- lores 3y ago
  That's an urban legend, as you suspect, at least in the US and UK - there's nothing in the law requiring to maximise profits. https://legislate.ai/blog/does-the-law-require-public-companies-to-maximise-shareholder-value https://legislate.ai/blog/does-the-law-require-public-compan...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    So it's really only applicable when something egregious like a conflict of interest is at play. Not surprised by that. "In Shlensky v Wrigley, a famous American case, the firm that owned the Chicago Cubs baseball team refused to hold games at night, even though this would have increased profits and value. The director, Mr Wrigley, argued that installing lights for the games would disturb the peace of the surrounding environment." Good example of it not being 100% about money.
- advael 3y ago
  Sure, and as with other optimizing systems, as the process of growth continues, the degree to which those priorities are correlated with ROI will gradually increase, selecting against aspects of them that are anticorrelated from the getgo, but eventually coming for ones that are merely uncorrelated as more investment allows more steering by shareholders, and in the world of private equity, likely some of the merely-weakly-correlated priorities as well (and in some cases, even the business' survival will be sacrificed in favor of something that benefits an aggregate portfolio in a particular quarter)

by advael 3y ago

hot_gril 3y ago

They can't legally claim to care about something besides money (even this I'm unsure about), but if the leadership cares, they can steer the company a certain way.

lores 3y ago
That's an urban legend, as you suspect, at least in the US and UK - there's nothing in the law requiring to maximise profits. https://legislate.ai/blog/does-the-law-require-public-companies-to-maximise-shareholder-value https://legislate.ai/blog/does-the-law-require-public-compan...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- hot_gril 3y ago
  So it's really only applicable when something egregious like a conflict of interest is at play. Not surprised by that. "In Shlensky v Wrigley, a famous American case, the firm that owned the Chicago Cubs baseball team refused to hold games at night, even though this would have increased profits and value. The director, Mr Wrigley, argued that installing lights for the games would disturb the peace of the surrounding environment." Good example of it not being 100% about money.
advael 3y ago
Sure, and as with other optimizing systems, as the process of growth continues, the degree to which those priorities are correlated with ROI will gradually increase, selecting against aspects of them that are anticorrelated from the getgo, but eventually coming for ones that are merely uncorrelated as more investment allows more steering by shareholders, and in the world of private equity, likely some of the merely-weakly-correlated priorities as well (and in some cases, even the business' survival will be sacrificed in favor of something that benefits an aggregate portfolio in a particular quarter)