> if you aren’t moving the needle economically for the company, you’re a liability.
I would add, moving the needle in the short term. A business taking a long term view would care more about quality (reliability, security maintainability).
I would add, moving the needle in the short term. A business taking a long term view would care more about quality (reliability, security maintainability).
So the company's shareholders might only want the term to be just long enough to cash out.
What I mean by long term here is more than two or three years.
> So the company's shareholders might only want the term to be just long enough to cash out.
Which means they need to sell to people who think the business has enough of a future for them to cash out. That stretches the terms a bit, but not long enough from the point of view of employees, customers, or what is good of the economy as a while.
Depends on the composition of shareholders too. One thing I recall from my time in investment management was the problem of clients who were reluctant to sell because it would create a capital gains tax liability. At the other extreme are fund managers whose most pressing concern is where they will appear in this year's performance league tables.
From what I know academics in computing fields tend to write high quality software. Not all not Donald Knuth level, but they seem to mostly care about quality.