The 20th-century view of shareholder primacy is flawed. By focusing first on creating wins for all stakeholders—customers, employees, suppliers, and society—companies build a sustainable, beloved enterprise that paradoxically delivers superior returns to shareholders in the long run.

Eric Ries argues that if a company's legal purpose, defined in its corporate charter, is shareholder primacy, any public-facing mission statement about enriching customers or employees is fundamentally dishonest.

Contrary to popular belief, Milton Friedman's 1971 essay did not solely advocate for profits. He included the concept of 'social amenities,' urging businesses to be responsible employers, which reframes the modern shareholder vs. stakeholder debate.

A study found that CEOs trained to prioritize shareholder value deliver short-term returns by suppressing employee pay. This practice drives away high-skilled workers and cripples the company's long-term outlook, all without evidence of actually increasing sales, productivity, or investment.

"Stakeholder capitalism" often fails because it frames progress as a zero-sum compromise and an appendage to a broken system. A better model is "mission primacy," which redesigns the organization's core purpose to be the creation of specific value, from which all other benefits flow.

The prevalent Milton Friedman-style, shareholder-only capitalism has only been the dominant model since about 1970. This neoliberal approach is just one phase in capitalism's history, not its fundamental, unchanging definition. This historical context opens the door for a new consensus to form.

Common law dictates that a principal (investor) is liable for their agent's (the company's) actions. Insisting a company must maximize shareholder returns (agency) while claiming zero liability for its actions is a modern, intellectually incoherent legal contradiction that puts the entire system at risk.

Contrary to popular belief, the doctrine of shareholder primacy is a recent invention. For most of corporate history, companies were chartered for a specific public benefit, and subverting that mission purely for shareholder profit would have been considered a crime.

Contrary to popular belief, widely accepted corporate governance principles often lack supporting data. Research indicates these practices are destructive, while mission-driven alternatives consistently show superior performance across financial, loyalty, and other key metrics.