[afavour]

“Other companies have failed in the past so we shouldn’t assert anything about a public company’s finances” is just silly. I’m not making a legally binding statement in a court filing or something. We might as well just shut down Hacker News entirely if we aren’t able to talk freely.

> imply that somehow someone being rich makes it morally correct to grift them or break them.

I can’t help but feel like you’re injecting an unrelated personal view into the discussion here. Apple is not a person, personifying a company muddies the waters, not clear them.

[shreyansh_k]

> “Other companies have failed in the past so we shouldn’t assert anything about a public company’s finances”

Please don't put words in my mouth. My original statement was only to the effect of "people (who are not associated to a respective company) shouldn't take calls on how the respective company should spends their budgets" and not to discourage the discussion of the finances of a company.

I assure that it definitely is a personal view... and all of us are projecting our own personal view(s) in this discussion _because_ this discussion is largely about the many ways to interpret this.

Anyway, not to take anything away from your point, even in the eyes of American/European law, a corporation is sometimes actually treated as a person, depending on circumstances. So, I think it is useful to look from that perspective as well.