No good co will actually take money from the incumbent they're trying to uproot
Mozilla is funded by google.
It has also tied up with yahoo in 2014, Microsoft in 2004 and with IRS audits too.
Facebook establishing a venture arm to invest in startups
161–165 of 165 posts
Re: Facebook establishing a venture arm to invest in startups
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has this law ever been enforced against a company; that is, is there a ore-existing verdict against a Delaware company for violating this statute? Or is this more of a hypothetical threat? What would the damages or penalty be for violation? It’s not like you can demand money a company should have made without cause or more importantly, verifiable harm to the counter-party.
Certainly it has been enforced against a company (thousands of them), but in a way it is more of a hypothetical threat. I was not referring to a statutory law, but rather to fiduciary duties, which derive from the common law of equity. The quotation from the Hsu case I provided above is a clear depiction of the standard of conduct required of directors and officers of Delaware corporations. But in reality, fiduciary…
Thank you for typing this well thought out response! I see the fiduciary duty canard brought out and it usually functions in debate as a thought-terminating cliche. My comment was meant to elucidate whether or not it was the last word on fiduciary duty; your comment helps clarify the judicial and fiduciary reality on the ground, and really added a lot to my understanding of these issues. Thanks again.
Re: Facebook establishing a venture arm to invest in startups
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
Certainly it has been enforced against a company (thousands of them), but in a way it is more of a hypothetical threat. I was not referring to a statutory law, but rather to fiduciary duties, which derive from the common law of equity. The quotation from the Hsu case I provided above is a clear depiction of the standard of conduct required of directors and officers of Delaware corporations. But in reality, fiduciary…
Thank you for typing this well thought out response! I see the fiduciary duty canard brought out and it usually functions in debate as a thought-terminating cliche. My comment was meant to elucidate whether or not it was the last word on fiduciary duty; your comment helps clarify the judicial and fiduciary reality on the ground, and really added a lot to my understanding of these issues. Thanks again.
Thank you for your kind words! I totally agree about how flippantly people throw out the value-maximization point. And it is definitely true that the real standards which govern directors' and officers' conduct are murkier than the maxim "maximize shareholder value." The Business Roundtable's recent embrace of stakeholder theory seems likely to complicated things [1], and efforts by influential people like former Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Leo Strine [2] and legendary corporate lawyer Martin Lipton [3] have meaningfully contested the accepted definition of corporate purpose outside of the academy in recent months. But I do think Delaware law is pretty clear on the principle behind D&Os' fiduciary duties. The best summation I have seen of it is in a talk that Vice Chancellor Travis Laster gave at UVA Law last spring; [4] it's a great talk. Cheers yo.
[1] https://www.businessroundtable.org/business-roundtable-redef...
[2] https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2020/05/16/purpose-with-mean...
[3] https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2020/05/27/on-the-purpose-of...
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET8v47XPcUY&feature=youtu.be
Re: Facebook establishing a venture arm to invest in startups
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for typing this well thought out response! I see the fiduciary duty canard brought out and it usually functions in debate as a thought-terminating cliche. My comment was meant to elucidate whether or not it was the last word on fiduciary duty; your comment helps clarify the judicial and fiduciary reality on the ground, and really added a lot to my understanding of these issues. Thanks again.
Thank you for your kind words! I totally agree about how flippantly people throw out the value-maximization point. And it is definitely true that the real standards which govern directors' and officers' conduct are murkier than the maxim "maximize shareholder value." The Business Roundtable's recent embrace of stakeholder theory seems likely to complicated things [1], and efforts by influential people like former Del…
Oh wow! Even more info. I remember hearing about the Business Roundtable on a podcast when it was breaking, but haven’t heard much since.
Did it end up just being lip service, or are there lasting changes in industry or individual companies that we can point to which show prioritization of stakeholder value over simple shareholder value?
Re: Facebook establishing a venture arm to invest in startups
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for your kind words! I totally agree about how flippantly people throw out the value-maximization point. And it is definitely true that the real standards which govern directors' and officers' conduct are murkier than the maxim "maximize shareholder value." The Business Roundtable's recent embrace of stakeholder theory seems likely to complicated things [1], and efforts by influential people like former Del…
Oh wow! Even more info. I remember hearing about the Business Roundtable on a podcast when it was breaking, but haven’t heard much since. Did it end up just being lip service, or are there lasting changes in industry or individual companies that we can point to which show prioritization of stakeholder value over simple shareholder value?
That question is probably a bit over my head. My outlook is pretty grim and skeptical because of my experience with American capitalism so far. But the fact that people like Leo Strine and Marty Lipton are apparently meaningfully moving these ideas beyond the bounds of academia is definitely a good sign. (Slightly) more tangibly, 93% of investor respondents to a recent survey about corporate purpose indicated that it's important for a corporation to have a purpose, and 38% agreed that defining/managing stakeholder impact is an important reason to have a corporate purpose.[1] (This study was published on the HLS Blog after I wrote a more cynical reply to you yesterday and forgot to send it. Neat I guess.)
I read the Harvard Law corporate governance blog pretty regularly, and a staggering percentage of recent scholarship on there has been about corporate purpose, stakeholder capitalism, and ESG. ESG and stakeholder theory aren't exactly the same thing, but here's a good overview of how ESG might impact M&A and governance moving forward [2].
[1] https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2020/06/19/making-corporate-... [2] https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2020/02/20/the-coming-impact...