“Serving customers” just gives them an advantage in their ultimate aim - making money.

Any public company that is not majority owned by one person and is not maximizing their profit is a target of a Carl Icahn type of investor, who will buy up enough shares to force them to maximize profits.

It's hard to take pride in your company when even the largest shareholders have small percentages.

Your identity is no longer tied to the company and the only thing left is how much profit per share.

It's sort of like a microchasm of socialism or communism. If you own 9% of apple, people don't blame you personally when apple misbehaves.