[ythn]

From my perspective, any company that goes public will eventually turn to crap (or go through decades-long crap/good cycles). It's not MBAs that drive for growth at all costs - I would argue it's shareholders. Shareholders are greedy and don't care about anything else besides ROI. Even if that means throwing the consumers under the bus in the long run to achieve that.

[ng12]

Yeah but who do you think is pushing the company to bow to the shareholder pressure?

[rm_-rf_slash]

It could very well be the engineers looking to make a lot of money with their stock options after all their hard work.

[pishpash]

It could very well be the MBA's who designed the incentives program.

[yalph]

It is the Boardroom === MBAs.

[lordgrenville]

A company has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders, who bought the stock on the assumption that the company will be run in their best interests. If they do't do that they are open to shareholder lawsuits. (This is the way that activist investors often work.)

[tjoff]

A company does not have an obligation to be short sighted. This is also something the company can communicate to any investors.

Is it really common for lawsuits against normal sized companies? (I'm not talking intel, facebook etc.)

[zeusk]

Activist investors fight for power in board rooms, not in court rooms.

[jwsec]

IT doesn't appear that FB values user privacy, this is not a surprise.

[kolbe]

The legal system? Shareholders can vote to replace board members.

[envy2]

Not really at a controlled company like Facebook.