Shareholders are the strawmen used to justify what passes for modern business philosophy.

There’s an almost religious belief in whatever keeps the analysts happy this quarter is the right move. While this is done in the name of the shareholder, it happens to align with the compensation of the managers and directors making that decision.

I see Boeing as a defense/aerospace version of HP, GE, or IBM. In the case of Boeing, management went so far as to move a couple of thousand miles from most of the company. All of these firms chose to put themselves on the path to decline, and did so in a way obvious to anyone who looked closely.

In theory they should want that, but if the company spends money on preparing for the future and its profits decline as a result, then the share price drops. The incentives aren't there.

If short term profit drops but the consensus DCF of future activities rises, the share price is likely to go up. (That’s where preparing for the future creates shareholder value.)

On the other side, it happens all the time that a company has a single blowout quarter and the shares fall.

Amazon would appear to be a strong counter example. Investors are happy to tolerate low short-term profits as long as management has a credible plan to increase long-term profits.