Comment by jacquesm

4 hours ago

No, the claim is that if a CEO would make the decision not to pursue a particular revenue stream that the company would be sued. This is bullshit.

To everything you can find exceptions, no one's arguing what you're claiming. And you have to read between the lines here, a board doesn't have to remove a CEO for a decision, what I'm trying to point out is the CEO knows their job, and the board knows their job. Just like there's things you know if you do you won't get a good pay raise or bonus (or gasp, get fired), the CEO knows how to avoid that in the long term. The board also knows what they must do over the long term to keep their nice board seat. No one has to get sued to get the message.

  • I’m not claiming CEOs are legally required to chase every conceivable revenue dollar or that they’d lose a lawsuit if they don’t. Corporate law doesn’t work that way, and no serious person thinks it does.

    What does exist is a well-understood governance and incentive regime: boards evaluate CEOs on long-term shareholder value, compensation is tied to financial performance, and strategic restraint has to be justified in those terms. That doesn’t require lawsuits, and it doesn’t require explicit mandates. It’s how large public companies are run.

    The fact that Apple could charge 50% and chooses not to doesn’t refute this — it just shows that extraction is constrained by regulation, backlash, and platform risk. But once those constraints weaken, dominant platforms reliably increase extraction. That’s an empirical pattern, not a legal theory.

    • > That’s an empirical pattern, not a legal theory.

      That's fine

      > It’s their fiduciary duty.

      Then don't make legal claims.