No question but I love the idea. I was just explaining to my wife about how I never want to work at a publicly traded company because their only goal is maximizing shareholder value in the short term.
What about Amazon that operated on losses for many consecutive years?
>> their only goal is maximizing shareholder value in the short term
and mentioned Amazon making a loss. You're right that Amazon could credibly be described as "maximizing shareholder value", but I think the question of whether they maximize shareholder value in the short term is more subtle.
You could do some jiujitsu and say "long-term value maximization is equivalent to short-term value maximization under reasonable assumptions", but I think the discussion upthread was about a more prosaic concept of short-termism that is related to profits. They wouldn't have qualified their statement with "in the short term" if they'd meant "expected NPV" :-).
Actual long term performance requires more than PR, pitching, and posturing. It requires actually following through and reaching the expected profits.