I don't know of anyone claiming it's a legal obligation. It's a natural obligation, and it's worse.

The shareholders want profit maximised, and with that end, decide upon the board of directors, who decide upon the CEO. If the CEO does not maximise profits, the CEO will not remain the CEO. Therefore, the CEOs of (publicly-traded) companies are obliged to maximise profits – those who do not feel such an obligation are not CEOs.

Literally two posts above yours, the one your parent is replying to, are the words “legally obligated to put profit ahead of anything else.”

Hmm. I could argue that technically there're sometimes contracts with investors, but that's not about public trading; they probably just didn't understand where the obligation comes from.

To clarify: I don’t believe that companies are legally obligated to maximize profits.

I do believe that there are people who claim that companies have that legal obligation, which is what you said you’d not observed.

It's odd to claim companies are obligated to maximize profit in a thread about Amazon, whose retail operation isn't profitable and basically exists because Bezos hypnotized investors into giving him free money forever.

Sure sure, you know what I meant.. Legally in the sense that for _most_ companies, if they don't prioritize profits, they can potentially face shareholder lawsuits, or management gets ousted and replaced by the board, etc..