Hello Savio,

I love your response...clearly articulated and elegantly argued. Well done. Thank you always for civil discourse (the course I tilt toward when trying to advance discussions).

Several points via questions:

* Would you agree that you have an implicit time horizon built into your explanation of how management should manage a company? Namely, it sounds as if you are advocating for management adopting a perpetual time horizon, yes? If so, how does that jibe with those shareholders, like an Icahn, who take large interests in business to influence board decision making, ergo managment, to restructure the company so that his payback period is, at most 18-24 months? In other words, management cannot afford to have a time horizon assumption if they are slavish to the generic conception of 'shareholder.' Here we get into some paradoxical situations. If management makes the choice to manage the business for perpetuity, yet the average holding period for their stock is not perpetuity (and always less than a year) how can management say they are managing the business for shareholders?

* Then there is the small matter that while EPS may march upward in a linear fashion, stock price does not. For all shareholders to be satisfied they must be as confident as the philosophical shareowner who desires management manage a business for perpetuity that there will be an upward trajectory to EPS and that the share price will follow suit eventually. But that word 'eventually' is again a time horizon mismatch for most shareholders, where holding periods are always less than a year. Do all shareholder constituents agree that stock price will follow upward EPS growth? If not, we are back to the same problem: to which shareholders should management be held to account? And for what time horizon?

* And last, if your time horizon is that management should manage the business for perpetuity I will point out a problem. Namely, managers in that equation are no longer managing for the benefit of shareholders. Instead, they are managing for the benefit of the entirety of, and the perpetuity of, the life of the business. This is a very different focus on the part of management. It is away from one claimant, shareholders, back to the benefit of all those that contribute to the success of the business, and have claims based on that success.

Yours, in service,

Jason