This is too reductionist. When you go to work, do you go maximize shareholder value? Were you ever part of a team and felt good about the work you were doing together? Was it because you were maximizing shareholder value?
> When you go to work, do you go maximize shareholder value?
Yes. The further up the ladder you go, the more this is pounded into your head. I was in a few Big Tech and this is how you write your self-assessment. "Increased $$$ revenue due to higher user engagement, shipped xxx product that generated xxx sales etc".
If you're level 1/2 engineer, sure. You get sold on the company mission. But once you're in senior level, you are exposed to how the product/features will maximize the company's financial and market position. How each engineer's hours are directly benefiting the company.
> Were you ever part of a team and felt good about the work you were doing together?
Maybe some startups or non-profits can have this (like Wikipedia or Craigslist), but definitely not OpenAI, Google and Meta.
Of course the business needs to work as a business too. I'm not saying that's not real, I'm saying it's reductionist to say it's only that.
Put another way, you need to have an answer to the question: Why should I work towards optimizing the success of this business rather than another one's.
If there isn't a great answer to this, you'll have employees with no shared sense of direction and no motivation.
Most of the work I as an engineer do is jumping through hoops that engineers from other departments have drawn up. If someone up high really cared, wouldn't they have us work on something that matters?
It is really depressing how corporations don't look like they are run by humans.