Company Purpose Debate

The abstract of the article is that companies want to make money. Therefore, anything companies do is the result of them thinking it will help them make (more) money. Seems pretty basic to me.

I'm not saying companies should not make money. I'm talking about instrumental vs. terminal values. Money can and should be viewed as means to an end, as instrumental for achieve the company's purpose - be it feeding people, making good tools or getting them to space. But very often it becomes terminal - the company's purpose becomes making money, and what they do becomes means to an end. The entire structure becomes reversed.

For money, my dear, for money. Is there any other reason for a company to exist? The stuff like "do no evil" or "we are green" is just a smoke screen. At the end they will do everything for money.

What else should for profit companies exist for?

This is not actually why companies exist. Creating profit for shareholders is a side effect and only happens for a minority of companies. The purpose of a company is to provide value based on the service it provides or products it creates.

That's simply not true, goal of most businesses is to make money. You can clearly deduce this goal much more the bigger the company gets. What you say only makes sense if you are confusing the stated publicly goal, the appearance that company maintains and its true goal which is pursued by the executives (the capital).

Just to remember that a company is not a NGO, and that a company only purpose is to make money. So a company does not decide to improve the state of art, or help, provide free ideas of the target goal is not to get his share of the incomes.

Companies aren't required to make money, this is a popular misconception. The company can have any purpose or set of purposes unless it's illegal, and most often even if "make money" is on the list it isn't the sole purpose.I appreciate that HN might be more likely than most places to be inhabited by people who can't imagine any other motivation except money, but for most of us there are other priorities.

Companies aren't charities. Their goal is to make money, not help anyone out.

Those are your goals, and your company's profits may enable you to achieve them. Your company's sole purpose is getting you those profits.That's economics 101, stop idealizing business entities.