Hacker News Reader

Comment by dragonwriter | Hacker News Reader

> A for-profit school has an obligation to its shareholders to maximize profits.

No, it doesn't. A for-profit corporation has an obligation to serve it's shareholders interests faithfully, but that is not, generally, a narrow obligation to profit maximization.

View on HN

Tell that to Carl Icahn. Management that puts public good over return on investment is likely to be replaced. The interest of shareholders are generally construed as maximizing return.

Carl Icahn's position, of course, matters if Icahn is a major shareholder of the firm in question; less so otherwise.

My guess is that maximizing ROI is also popular among investors not named Carl Icahn. I don't think I've ever worked for a company where the investors said "we want you to make money, and also accomplish socially relevant goal XXXX" where decided to sacrifice any part of "making money" for the sake of XXXX.

I've worked with plenty of investors who had goals which went beyond purely making money. There's even a legal movement to formally tie corporations to non-profit motivations (see benefit corporations).

Thinking about non-profit vs for-profit as a strict dichotomy is unhelpful. There are plenty of investors who shy away from particular for-profit investments and prefer other ones for entirely non-financial reasons.

Sounds like a good idea, provided it's more a more specific and verifiable commitment than Google's vacuous "don't be evil".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com