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Comment by burkaman | Hacker News Reader

Counterpoint: the human beings that run Intel are not "supposed to" do everything possible to make their shareholder more money, regardless of the cost. I accept that they're going to do that, but there's nothing forcing them to, there's just a general cultural acceptance of greed.

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No one is saying that. They do what the shareholders want because that's who they legally work for. Shareholders can say screw China, take a stand and they will. They can't unilaterally say screw the shareholders we're going in this direction.

A company is a group of people coming together for a purpose. Management can't destory the group in pursuit of their own values. A ship's captain can't risk the ship because of their own values.

> They do what the shareholders want

They haven't even asked what the shareholders want. They don't think they need to, because they believe that everyone will naturally share their belief that money is their highest priority.

Management doesn't ask shareholders for approval on every decision.

They have a duty to act in the best interest of the shareholder. Generally that means not having reduced revenue. This is what most people accept. If shareholders want them to do something different they can let them know.

> Generally that means not having reduced revenue.

I think this is the fundamental disagreement we have, and it's probably too big of a conversation for a comment thread. In my philosophy of determining "best interest", revenue is an important consideration, but not the only one and not the most important one. There is certainly no legal duty to increase revenue or stock price or anything like that.

They do what the shareholders want because that's who they legally work for.

Under which law? Plenty of corporate boards do things their shareholders don't like every day.

Management is very much supposed to do whatever the owners tell them to do. If they don’t like it, they can resign in protest.

Having said that, someone at Intel, owners or managers, are way off track here and in need of severe consequences. They picked the wrong side.

Shareholders haven't resolved that Intel must or must not use slave labour.

And a court isn't going to second-guess the management if they judge the cost savings of using slave labour don't outweigh the potential for reputational damage.

As such, management are free to act either way.

A flaw in the system to be sure. As a former INTC owner, I dumped my stake a while ago.

I think there should be far more shareholder involvement in general. We are far too acquiescent as a group.

If you polled every direct and indirect INTC holder (you may be one, unknowingly) about slavery and concentration camps, you’d walk away with a near 100% mandate for taking all measures against it.

I would argue that 'shareholders' aren't able to influence these decisions at multi-national mega corporations, because many don't even know they are shareholders. Think about Joe Blow from the US. He has a managed 401k or some such investment. He has no idea the 'low-risk' fund offered through Edward Jones invests in Intel or Google or whoever. He has no idea he plays a part in this.

I would argue that 'shareholders' aren't able to influence these decisions at multi-national mega corporations

There's such a thing as activist investors, and they seem to be gaining influence lately. From what I read in the newspaper, they're behind a lot of the changes that are starting to happen at certain multi-national oil companies.

Very true. Public shareholding is like a parallel democracy, where almost none of the voters are paticipating or voting.

I strongly believe we need more voter participation here.

Management is very much supposed to do whatever the owners tell them to do. If they don’t like it, they can resign in protest.

It's not a one-way street.

Management can do things, and if the shareholders don't like it, they can sell their shares in protest.

Happens all the time.

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