They know that American tech companies are legally obligated (by ‘fiduciary duty’ to shareholders) to prioritize quarterly profits over long-term human survival.
Fwiw I read here that there actually is not such a legal duty to prioritize profits.
Not an expert either, but safest to say the corporate-law question is nuanced and not free from doubt. It’s pretty clear there’s no duty to maximize short-term profits, though.
But we can surmise that most boards that allow the corporation to seriously curtail its profits—at least its medium-term profits—will get replaced by shareholders soon enough. So the end result is largely the same.
Fwiw I read here that there actually is not such a legal duty to prioritize profits.
MaxRa—I might have been wrong about this; I’m not at all an expert in corporate law. Thanks for the informative link.
A more accurate claim might be ‘American tech companies tend to prioritize short-term profits over long-term human survival’.
Not an expert either, but safest to say the corporate-law question is nuanced and not free from doubt. It’s pretty clear there’s no duty to maximize short-term profits, though.
But we can surmise that most boards that allow the corporation to seriously curtail its profits—at least its medium-term profits—will get replaced by shareholders soon enough. So the end result is largely the same.