[xjay]

Alan Kay mentioned this recently at a UCLA talk [1] in February. It's known as the "The Friedman doctrine" after the American economist Milton Friedman.

A) Milton Friedman: Shareholder profits > All. "...the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. This shareholder primacy approach views shareholders as the economic engine of the organization and the only group to which the firm is socially responsible. As such, the goal of the firm is to increase its profits and maximize returns to shareholders." [2]

B) Peter Drucker: Customer has primary focus. "A company's primary responsibility is to serve its customers. Profit is not the primary goal, but rather an essential condition for the company's continued existence and sustainability." [3]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZQ7x0-MZcI&t=5205s

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Drucker

[PeterisP]

Company's continued existence and sustainability isn't necessarily a terminal goal or a valuable thing; most industries aren't growing eternally but eventually reach a decline, and in certain cases the best way to handle that is to exit that industry while you can still do it effectively - milking the company dry and then shutting it down while you can get a good deal for its assets, instead of losing most of its value while slowly agonizing in a declining market to try to continue its existence until you can't and it gets shut down after bleeding all its reserves.