Simon Sinek argues that public-company executives face intense, often harmful pressure from shareholders and Wall Street to prioritize short-term results over the company's long-term health. He contrasts short-term investors with long-term investors who support leadership and vision, cites Steve Jobs as an example of ignoring Wall Street, names newer purpose-driven companies (Airbnb, Sweetgreen), and offers an anecdote about a CEO called Gary Ridge at 'WG40' to illustrate courage in leadership.
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Just talk to any public company executive. It's a big open secret. You know, publicly they're all shareholder driven, privately they'll tell you they frickin hate it. And it's, and you know, literally there's massive pressure, massive pressure, not to mention lopsided incentive structures because you know, paid in equity to, as they all know, I mean, it's not a secret. Make decisions that they know are bad for their company and avoid making decisions that they know are good for their company. So they can help some 29 year old analysts get their bonus. You know.
Remember, you know, Steve Jobs ignored Wall street, never paid dividends, didn't care. If you like us, invest in this, if you don't like us, don't invest in this was his attitude. And the joke is if you're doing well, they're going to invest in you anyway because they're gamblers, not investors, the short termers anyway. You have long term investors who believe in the leadership team. You have long term investors who believe in your vision and they stick with you through thick and thin. And when you have a hard time, they don't just suddenly abandon you. Those are the ones we should focus on because they actually obey your values. The good news is there's a new breed of young leader and there's some of the newer iPodOS, your Airbnbs, your sweet greens that are talking more about the infinite game. They're talking more about things like triple bottom lines, they're talking more about purpose. And I hope that they're able to withstand the overwhelming pressures. But I don't even think they knew how much pressure it would be.
One of my favorite CEOs is a guy by the name of Gary ridge, who's the CEO of WG40, as in the lubricant company. And he was on one of his analysts calls and the analyst said, you know Gary, you missed your numbers. And Gary said, no, my numbers are fine. I miss Journey.
And I think that if we have that kind of courage, if the leaders have that kind of courage to run the business the way that they think it should be run and literally say invest in this or don't.
Then I think Wall street is less dangerous. But Wall street has exerted a lopsided and unbalanced amount of negative pressure in companies for far too long.
