Always thinking about maximizing profit leads a lot of companies to make moves that don’t align with my values, like loading a product full of ads, spamming users to generate sales, or selling user data. One could argue that these are addressed by the article in the “and stay up” directive, but looking around at the industry, it seems clear that people don’t care and many customers simply accept that this is the way of the world. It’s not the world I want, nor are they the companies I’d want to give my business to, or work for.

If what I think would delivery stockholder value is in opposition to the direction the leadership of the company is going to attempt to drive up shareholder value, that can be a major source of burnout and lack of purpose.