Tim Cook memorably said (in 2014): "When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don't consider the bloody ROI."

How come the board hasn't eliminated him?

Tim Cook, the guy kissing Trump’s ass? Is that really the example you want to use of a company having principles? A company clamoring to bend their knee to a fascist to avoid tariffs? Lmao

Yes. They also kept their DEI and environmental programs, actually substantive policies that many other companies are trashing because of this administration. I'll take performative ass kissing while preserving the important policies any day.

I'm refuting your childish claim that the "only goal of a publicly traded corporation is to make the line go up".

Again, completely false and trivially disprovable.

Most boards defer to management on most topics and most shareholders do not vote on anything substantial, they proxy vote, which defers to management. And thus management nearly always does whatever it wants, as long as the company isn't a dumpster fire of losses. It usually takes a shareholder activist threatening a hostile takeover or proxy battle to change this dynamic.

It comes back to people. The people (employees, management, board of directors, shareholders) determine what a company does and how it acts. "Numbers go up" isn't always the motivating factor, and I'd wager that the majority of privately held corporations (i.e. small businesses) are fine with "numbers go up modestly" because they are lifestyle businesses, not growth businesses.