Hacker News Reader

No. Public companies are absolutely allowed to engage in long term strategies like "don't burn the future and reputation of the brand to temporarily juice near-term profit". The reason they don't is because the people making the decisions don't care about the future of the brand and do care about near-term profit.

https://law.justia.com/cases/delaware/supreme-court/1990/571...

> Second, absent a limited set of circumstances as defined under Revlon, a board of directors, while always required to act in an informed manner, is not under any per se duty to maximize shareholder value in the short term, even in the context of a takeover.

It’s absolutely untrue. It’s why companies are legally allowed to burn money on questionable investments or donate to political candidates if their Boards are fine with it.

In the case of the US, "legally required" is a myth. A common one, but a myth nonetheless.

> To quote the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in the recent Hobby Lobby case: “Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.”

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

An adjacent commenter explained further: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50209678