No, Sun going bankrupt doesn't prove anything. Who knows why they went bankrupt? There's some correlation, and people tend to assume correlation means causation, and also that anecdotal evidence can be taken seriously. Even if sun went bankrupt directly because of their friendly attitude, that does not mean the opposite is true either (that you should be as hostile as you can).
As far as charity is illegal goes: If a shareholder can prove you are not ensuring maximum earnings, he can sue you. It's exceedingly hard to make your case, as the executive team will simply write off the lack of going for the obvious quick buck as investing in long-term community goodwill and PR, as has been said before, but that doesn't change the idea behind the law. In particular, stating that you're doing action X "because its good for humanity" will get you sued. You have to dress it up. On Sep 8, 9:53 pm, Cédric Beust ♔ <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Reinier Zwitserloot > <[email protected]>wrote: > > > We can and should lament the fall of Sun, as they more than any other > > company tried to sell the notion that creating community goodwill is > > good for the corporation, but, well, they went bankrupt > > Wouldn't that be the proof that creating community goodwill is *bad* for > corporations? > > If anything, Google is proving that you can do a lot of things that don't > benefit your bottom line (e.g.http://google.org, giving its employees free > meals every day, giving money to charities and eco-friendly organizations, > etc...) and yet remain profitable. > > -- > Cédric -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
