I disagree with much here, but maybe you’re onto something with the stock option thing. It would have to be legislated, and the devil’s details are legion, but what if?

What if we said, “Your company profits/grosses >$X, then you can’t offer executive stock options.” Again, devilish details, and it’s not realistically passable legislation. But what if major CEOs were thereby forced to look past the next quarter?

I work for a software dev, only 130 of us. Our CEO reports to a board of directors and will tell them quick, “We expect to lose money next year because we’re investing in personnel and dialing in tech debt.” And it works and the board loves it. (I know this because he shares such things in front of the whole company, every month. And shows us the numbers.)

Crazy thing? Because of his forward thinking, we keep making more money, even when we expect to lose. Nuts how that works out. :)