This is a much more civilized response than my initial reaction, which was "go fuck yourself, mhartl".
The reason for that indignation was, as you pointed out, the obvious truth that without society's extension of limited legal liability, there would be no business in the first place - or, at least, not one with the scale and structure of a publicly traded company. And no, society does not grant this liability protection for free. Nor does it expect to get the short end of the deal. It has a stake in the outcome, and it expects that stake to be rewarded - no less than an investor expects a return on his capital.
mhartl's implication that "only shareholders have any legitimate interest" represents a trifecta of ignorance (of the law) ingratitude (for what it grants) and arrogance (in assuming that his counter-party is irrelevant). It is supremely egocentric and inevitably destructive.
You see the same warped sense of self expressed by people who go around saying "I'm a job creator" as though they were god-like individuals who combined - in a single person - holy trinity of supply, demand, and the ability to connect them that comprise any given job. In reality, jobs - like economic growth - are a product of several interactions that create a favorable situation for employment. No one person or organization controls all of them, or even (in most cases) a majority of them.
What these "job creators" can safely say is "I hire and fire." That's a much more honest description, and one that clearly implies the existence of factors outside their control about which they simply make judgements. Their role is good and necessary, but it is not creative in the sense of having invented, built, or authored a thing. More importantly, people who hire and fire well (aka "managers") are acutely aware of the broader milieu in which they operate, the extent to which they depend on it, and the degree to which their own well-being depends on the health of those around them.
Obliviousness to this vital interdependency remains deeply stupid. And unlike a temporary impairment (e.g. getting very drunk) or a moral impairment (e.g. a propensity to steal), the ethical blindness it represents is not something that the people who have it are usually aware of. Nor is it something about which they can easily be made aware. They simply lack the frame of reference needed to understand what they lack. Just consider colorblindness; a person who cannot see a limited part of the spectrum can still grasp the idea of color, and can make allowances for what they can't detect directly. But a person who has no sense of color whatsoever has no point of reference they can use to grasp even the idea of color.
When it comes to responsibility, people like mhartl fall into the latter camp. Their minds simply cannot process the idea of social reciprocity. That is to say, they have no real ethics. In extreme cases, this makes them properly sociopathic. If you find yourself working with a person like this, distance yourself as soon as possible. They are dangerous, entirely self-serving, and prolonged exposure will get you hurt.