Nick, Goldy, and their guests William Lazonick and Lenore Palladino explain why "shareholder value maximization" is the world's dumbest idea. 
William Lazonick: Professor of economics at University of Massachusetts Lowell, visiting Professor at University of Ljubljana, professeur associé at Institut Mines-Télécom in Paris, and professorial research associate, SOAS, University of London. His book ‘Sustainable Prosperity in the New Economy? Business Organization and High-Tech Employment in the United States’ won the 2010 Schumpeter Prize, and he has written extensively on corporate profits.
Twitter: @Lazonick
Lenore Palladino: Senior Economist and Policy Counsel at the Roosevelt Institute, where she brings expertise to Roosevelt’s work on inequality and finance. Her research and writing focuses on financial reform, financial taxation, labor rights, and financial crises. Her publications have appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, State Tax Notes, and other venues. 
Twitter: @lenorepalladino
Further reading: 
https://www.brookings.edu/research/stock-buybacks-from-retain-and-reinvest-to-downsize-and-distribute/
https://hbr.org/2014/09/profits-without-prosperity/
http://rooseveltinstitute.org/ending-shareholder-primacy-corporate-governance/
http://rooseveltinstitute.org/rewriting-rules-take-aim-stock-buybacks-and-force-companies-invest-their-workers-stop-walmart-act/
http://rooseveltinstitute.org/what-wells-fargos-40-6-billion-stock-buybacks-could-have-meant-its-employees-and-customers/
http://rooseveltinstitute.org/towards-accountable-capitalism/