once interests rate went up all DEI initiatives dried up - these companies don't really have integrity or beliefs beyond doing what is politically correct at the current time.
The idea behind a free market is to use the desire for profit as an incentive for the self-interested to collaborate with others and serve the public interest in doing so; this is why the state promotes the formation of businesses and punishes fraud and insider trading, in addition to violent crime.
... Man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and shew them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.
- From An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
You can read "politically correct" as "politically fashionable".
When money is cheap it's easy to spend a bit of money on political signalling. However when money is no longer cheap that pure cost centre is the first on the list for cuts.
Borrowing money becomes more expensive so companies will focus on their own needs (or surviving) rather than giving or outreach programs. Unlike Apple or NVIDIA most companies need to borrow money to stay in business.
> Borrowing money becomes more expensive so companies will focus on their own needs (or surviving) rather than giving or outreach programs.
All the (Big tech) companies - not just Apple and Nvidia - have higher revenues and profits now than they did during the Zero-interest regime. They are not hurting for money to fund outreach programs that meet their strategic goals.
What has changed is their hiring outlook. Online services saw unprecedented growth when everyone was cooped up in their homes due to Covid lockdowns, and the tech companies thought the growth would be permanent, rather than a temporary bump, and couldn't hire engineers fast enough to meet the anticipated growth: hence the outreach to non-traditional hiring-pipelines. After the layoffs, they stopped hiring aggressively and the labor market is now a buyers market
> most companies need to borrow money to stay in business.
With respect, this is entirely untrue. Most companies don't need to borrow money. It's the functional cancer of the VC-funded silicon valley meta that needs to borrow money to do anything useful. Most corporations run based on what they earn. This is the only reasonable thing too, or every country would have the egregious debt load that the US has.