Marketing and damage control. If I remember right, his lawyers were also behind the connection of Bitcoin and the SEC.
It’s not edgy to support a guy that few like. Contrary _can_ be good: it was an investment strategy that worked very well for me years ago, but….
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People like him are a dime a dozen, unlike the pills he jacked up. They’re not Alpha role models to emulate, that’s all I’m saying.
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It’s a myth to believe companies exist to make profits for shareholders. Also, Ponzi schemes are illegal.
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If you’re looking for role models for American businessmen, there’s far better ones than someone who does a fancy version of “Put your name at #10 and by the time the letter gets to #1, you’ll be a billionaire mathematically!”.
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I worked for Schering Plough for a few years as a Systems Analyst. This doesn’t make me Mr “I know Big Pharma” but I was there. Business + Marketing.
First off, there’s different level of shareholder.
Second, the shareholders are not their primary focus. Businesses exist to make profit. That is why they’re not non-profit. Profit for shareholders is a marketing carrot on a stick but isn’t the main thing.
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You’re not entirely wrong. There’s grains of truth in what you said. But the myth of “Corporations exist to maximize shareholder value” ain’t so.
If you ever get heavy into investing (I did), you learn how companies work on an inside level. They’re not evil, they just don’t work the way they promote. The marketing arm is the LEAST important thing to pay attention to, like little youtube videos and stuff.
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Corporations are not evil because corporations are not people. They can’t be evil. But the people who run them can be.
Corporate ethics extends as far as their lawyers arms.
The goal of business ethics is: “Don’t get sued more than you can handle”.
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“Right, what an evil son of a bitch making profits for his shareholders and his company so he can use it for research… “His COMPANY isn’t a person, so his company can’t be evil. Companies are for profit and they get away with whatever they legally can get away with as a company.But the individuals WITHIN the company _can_ be evil because doing “good things for a company” isn’t ‘good’, it’s business.Business isn’t good or evil. The people within are though. He’s not a good person. He’s a not-so-clever businessman.
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Failure in business is evil for business. Benefits to shareholders are a carrot on a stick to promote buying of further shares.He failed at that task.
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He pulled a shit stunt and it isn’t his first and it won’t be his last. He’s a prick: Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Maybe he’s nice to his mom when he goes to visit her. But nice guy? No. Typical sociopathic business dude? Yeah. He was just dumb enough to get caught and kept smiling. In a sense, he really *is* an innocent ’cause he honestly doesn’t see how he’s seen. He’ll never be able to “get it”. It’s a kind of brain damage really, so I kinda feel pity now.
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I take back all I said. He’s not evil. You’re absolutely right, Alan. He should be an object of pity, not hate. Poor guy.
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That’s all the more reason why I wouldn’t invest in his company. He’ll never “get it”. “I don’t know why people don’t like me, I’m just maximizing my own profit like a good little business is supposed to do. Why do I keep getting arrested? I was just maximizing my profit like I’m supposed to”. Now I feel bad for him. Poor kid.
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He’s probably somewhere on the autistic spectrum. At least they’re making good use of his talents instead of it being wasted away in a facility.But really, someone should tell him when he’s going too far. Its for his own good, really.
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Well, congratulations: You have effectively changed my mind about him, dammit. Maybe not in the way you intended, I dunno. But now I’m going to pay attention to who his caretakers are (his lawyers) and see how ethical they are to make sure they’re not mistreating him.
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Personally, I liked it better when he was just a typical business 80s-style prick, bad-guy of every 80s kids’ movie. But now he’s just one of the kids I used to work with at the cerebral palsy center back 25 years ago (they had kids with cp, autism, downs syndrome, sociopathy, emotional disorders): He successfully made it through the program in my mind now and now I want to make sure he’s not mistreated. Ugh. This is why I hate my sympathy card being pulled.