Those ideals died long ago when they took 500M+ of venture capital. Years later, those investors are taking their losses and public market actors can and will force them to make the hard decisions, like cutting the CEO's vanity project. Call it ruthless if you want, but any option post-VC, whether it's PE or public markets, is going to involve a lot less "lighting money on fire" projects. Outside that environment, a company is simply worth the sum of it's discounted future cashflow, with direct monetary incentive to maximize it.