[sdz]

The investors you refer to typically manage money on behalf of their investors and are actually under constant scrutiny. If they run mutual funds, their performance is measured every day, and if they underperform for a number of quarters in a row, their investors will absolutely “fire” them by withdrawing money from their funds.

[Apocryphon]

Then sounds like their incentives are inherently not conducive to the business of running businesses built on reasonable growth, and causes them to fall prey to the groupthink of expecting unrealistic macro environments to continue indefinitely.

[mohamedattahri]

Their role is not to run businesses. Their role is to allocate capital while weathering the macroeconomic environment to create returns.

Sometimes the best way to do that is to invest in a business, other times it’s to buy other assets, and other times cash is king.

Lastly, they are only involved because the shareholders of said companies involved them. Going public is not mandatory.