[TuringNYC]

Bonuses end up becoming political exercises. If you can keep bonuses aligned with value, that is great but I've seen otherwise many times.

Serious question - are there really many bad ways to bump up the stock price?

There is financial engineering (like stock buy-backs), you can just disallow that and remove the problem.

There is unnecessary M&A, but if the employees are running amok with unnecessary M&A, you have much bigger problems.

There are illegal things -- but we have the law to take care of that.

There are extractive measures (e.g., squeeze blood from workers, suppliers), but if that is allowed, then the "value" you see from that is likely also "value" you'd reflect on the annual bonus.

[JumpCrisscross]

From a shareholder perspective, buybacks that raise the stock price are just fine.

[gvhst]

Not if they company is buying back shares at an inflated valuation, which sadly too often the case.