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Comment by oldmanjay | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure what definition of "better" would apply but I'm certain there is a non-zero number of people who would prefer to see yahoo slowly die while paying the last of its money out to workers.

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Ok, fair enough. But is there any legal framework in which that could possibly happen given shareholders and their legal interests?

I'm asking for realistic alternatives. While I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your approach, I wouldn't exactly consider that realistic.

Why would that be illegal? There is nothing illegal about having other priorities than maximizing shareholder value. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary#Fiduciary_duties_und....

Those people should probably join a co-op or a non-profit organization then, for-profit publicly-traded corporations are not really set up for that with shareholders buying shares and firing boards and hiring new management and what not.

companies are for shareholders, not workers

That's one philosophy. The philosophy of my company is that the management team has an ethical responsibility to consider the interests of employees in strategic decision making. I am certain this is the only way to build a healthy long-lived tech company.

Exactly. And the sooner more companies' management as well as workers realize it, the better it will be for all concerned.

i think it's fair (and prudent) to consider workers in strategic vision. on the other hand, to "slowly die while paying the last of its money out to workers" is not reasonable

But to quickly die while paying out the money to owners of preferred stock is okay?

>companies are for shareholders, not workers

Companies, whether it is admitted by them or not, are really for stakeholders, not just shareholders, and stakeholders includes employees; or least, wise companies will act as if that is so, even if it is not so legally on paper.

You can also do it on paper. Make your VC shares subordinate to your employee ISO pool. Talk is cheap ;-)

Well that may be a better idea but they actually have to do it. What I meant was, if they don't behave that way, people will increasingly leave - when they can.

Have you never heard of a corporate charter? Shareholders are a component of a company, but not the reason a company exists.

Sure, so what does Yahoo's corporate by-laws or S-1 say?

The problem is that they already sold shares on the premise of being a for-profit entity extracting values to their shareholders.

They could have become an employee-owned co-op or a non-profit entity like Wikimedia or Craigslist, but at some point they chose not to.

PUBLIC companies are for shareholders, now workers. Private companies are another issue.

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