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Comment by gerdesj | Hacker News Reader

"Much of these problems with Google today stem from a lack of visionary leadership from Sundar Pichai, and his clear lack of interest in maintaining the cultural norms of early Google."

"The oft-mocked "don't be evil" truly was the guiding principle of the company at the time"

A company with public shareholding loses the ability to be anything other than a generator of increasing shareholder value. That is its overt and stated purpose when it goes public. In return for investment, the company must ensure a return on that investment. It's not that you've sold out or sold your soul - it is simply the market and how it works.

If you want to try to be the nice guy then don't go public. "Don't be evil" is a lovely idea but it does not wash if you want lots of loverly shareholder cash. Stay private and raise capital via the old fashioned method of convincing some rich people to buy into your idea and become private shareholders.

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Google founders have 51% of voting power. Nothing happens from public shareholders without their consent.

>A company with public shareholding loses the ability to be anything other than a generator of increasing shareholder value.

People always say this but I've never seen a law or regulation enforcing it. Care to enlighten me?

It's part of the tacit agreement when you list on an exchange - Initial Public Offering (IPO). You kick off with a nominated "value" ie I think I am worth x so I will sell y shares at z (where x = y * z). Hopefully all your shares are bought and you are fully capitalized and you can crack on with whatever you are doing.

You now have two major forms of "money in and out" - what your business makes and loses by doing its thing and lolly from investment by shareholders and the vagaries of the stockmarkets.

You can make and sell stuff to make loot - old school. You can also convince people that your ability to make and sell stuff is so good that you are really cool - your share price rises and so does your "value" via capitalization.

You don't list unless you actually want to become a generator of increasing shareholder value. There is no law or regulation because it is what it is. You need more capitalization and listing is a method. In return you sell your soul!

>tacit agreement

Not a law or regulation.

Why can't a company have a goal other than profit along side it? there's no reason they can't coexist and worthy of investment for the goal too.

If people don't want that they're free to not invest.

>You don't list unless you actually want to become a generator of increasing shareholder value.

Says who?

>There is no law or regulation because it is what it is.

There's no law in physics for it either. So in conclusion it's a layman's myth.

I am the MD of a small company. I have two partners and 15 employees. We are a private company and we can do what ever we like (within reason).

If we decided to try and grab a pot of cash from quivering investors to do mad things we would go for a listing - go public. Nowadays we would flood Insta/X/FB and that with all sorts of wankery and perhaps bother with the usual media and then show a bit of ankle to an exchange and then go with a prudent offering. We would offer x shares for y price.

Obviously, the world goes mad for us and buys the lot and with full capitalisation we become a unicorn with a rainbow mane. The papers are agog with how cool I am and TikTok explodes with how cool male pattern baldness really is.

y goes berserk and we have to split the bloody things to allow plebs to have a crack.

We are talking about money and not physics. I am a journeyman.

Perhaps Dodge vs. Ford Motor Company [1] is relevant here?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

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