Money can be a major concern to a huge operation without being its primary focus. Money is a big deal for the Red Cross, but the Red Cross doesn't exist to make money.
facebook has a legal obligation to maximize shareholder value:
Whereas for-profit organizations exist to earn and
re-distribute taxable wealth to employees and
shareholders, the nonprofit corporation exists solely to
provide programs and services that are of self-benefit.
No, it has a legal obligation to do what (the majority of) its shareholders say. If they tell it to dance a jig and give all its assets to the Flat Earth Society, it’s obliged.
Maximizing shareholder value in the way that’s usually meant is a business school doctrine, not a legal doctrine. (Edit: on second thought, it is a legal doctrine, just not the legal doctrine.) See, for example, http://www.virginialawbusrev.org/VLBR3-1pdfs/Stout.pdf :
“Dodge v. Ford is a mistake, a judicial “sport,” a doctrinal oddity largely irrelevant to corporate law and corporate practice. What is more, courts and legislatures alike treat it as irrelevant. […] Only laypersons and (more disturbingly) many law professors continue to rely on Dodge v. Ford.”
If they go public as expected, I'm doubting many equity holders will be interested in a jig.
I stand by my observation that a non-profit is poor evidence for the assertion "Money can be a major concern to a huge operation without being its primary focus"
But the money donated would likely generate better returns if reinvested in the business (or even just regular advertising), so it's not maximizing value.
Lots of companies exist to make money, sure, but it's possible for a company to exist where that's not the raison d'etre.
This thread feels like the twilight zone. How do the actions of the red cross, a non-profit organization, provide any evidence that for-profit companies don't act in a profit-maximizing way?
