No, making money is not a legal obligation. CEO at my last job told the board, two years in a row, that intended to lose money so we could invest in our people and tech. They cheered him.

there are many ways to fulfil this “obligation”… i’d argue that he’s increasing alphabet stock price in the short term but long term what the fuck is going to happen when the sources all go out of business?

… oh right they’re going to become a news monopoly… cool cool cool

regardless, i think there’s an argument to be made with all this “we are evil because it’s our legal duty to shareholders” that evil is a bad long-term choice. i think boeing is the prime example: if they weren’t “too big to fail” they’d be fucked because of their short term thinking