One 1970 newspaper essay convinced a generation of CEOs their only job was the stock price

Milton Friedman argued in the New York Times that an executive who spends company money on social causes is effectively spending other people's money without their consent, and that a company's only social responsibility is to maximize profit within the law. The 'Friedman Doctrine' became boardroom orthodoxy for decades before a later backlash over short-termism.

— Milton Friedman, A Friedman Doctrine: The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits — The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970