Re: Oracle's Mission Statement

J Alex wrote:
> "Daniel Morgan" <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu> wrote
>

>>Both Bill and Larry are executives in for-profit US corporations. They
>>are bound, and I do mean bound by law, to maximize shareholder value.

As a member of the Board of Directors of a U.S. C corporation I an assure you, on advice from my attorney, that they are legally bound to do so. And that failure to do so constitutes a breach of a fiduciary duty defined by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

A two minute search of the web with Google returned a few links that while not being "legal advice" should give you a sense of it. The search criteria was ["Maximize Shareholder Value" AND "SEC"]. So feel free to look yourself these all came off the first page and Google returned 2750 hits so there are plenty more.

http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/speecharchive/1999/spch335.htm
http://www.freddiemac.com/speeches/parseghian/gp082003.html
http://www.mossadams.com/services/sec/strategic.htm
http://www.ispcorp.com/archive/news/f_news45.html
http://www.herc.com/abouthercules/news/01/Response.htm
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m4PRN/2001_April_6/72869494/p1/article.jhtml

Search each returned page for the word "maximize." Two years of law school was not wasted on me. Though I will admit that it was painful.

-- 
Daniel Morgan
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)