That works fine where shareholders and officers are different groups. Since Apple's officers hold the majority of the shares those checks and balances cannot apply.

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Jobs' threat to go "thermonuclear" on this matter is a sharp reminder that people in such positions of power have a duty to use the resources made available to them by the owners, (the shareholders) in a prudent manner.

While I completely agree with your position on a personal level, I am not sure a corporation would see it as we do. I noted news articles the other day talking about the billions Apple is spending on R&D. I believe the occasion was an announcement by Apple that they are going to throw yet another billion into it. I remember thinking cynically how much of that will go to Apple's teams of patent lawyers as they go about trying to patent every line of code their software developers write, and every trivial design and piece of hardware. In that context then, throwing a billion dollars into trying to stifle the competition through law suites is a legitimate allocation of resources. (setting all ethical questions aside, that is).

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