The Cost of Forgetting Humans

A company exists to generate value for its shareholders. This is not controversial—it is the legal and economic foundation of corporate structure. Executives have fiduciary duties. Boards answer to investors. Profit is not a dirty word.

But here is what gets forgotten: shareholders do not write code, serve customers, or solve problems. People do.

The modern corporation has developed an impressive vocabulary for depersonalizing its workforce. Employees become “resources” to be allocated, “headcount” to be optimized, “FTEs” on a spreadsheet. This language is efficient. It is also revealing.

When people become abstractions, it becomes easier to treat them as expendable. Decisions that affect livelihoods get reduced to arithmetic. The human element—dignity, contribution, loyalty—disappears from the calculus.

This is not just an ethical concern. It is a strategic blind spot.

Companies that forget the humans behind the headcount eventually discover an uncomfortable truth: institutional knowledge walks out the door. Discretionary effort evaporates. The best people leave first, because they can. What remains is a hollowed-out organization wondering why the numbers no longer work.

Appreciation is not about perks or platitudes. It is about recognizing that without the people who show up and do the work, there is no company at all. Just a legal entity with no one left to make it real.

Shareholders may own the company. But people are the company.