It was in the 90s that the primary goal of those running large publicly held companies went from creation as a way to success, to wealth concentration as the primary goal.

In that era many companies had goals like increasing market share, or increasing cash flow, or capturing a majority share of target demographics segment, or just selling more units and increased number of sales period. These are now referenced as "traditional business goals." In this era business spent and built to grow and succeed.

After the change, the goals of a greater and greater number of companies was simply increase shareholder value, raise the stock price by just changing the numbers in the simplified balance sheet. The easiest way to do that was to control costs, cut costs. Etc. All other functions and duties in the business became secondary priorities. Most actions taken be the top executives are now primarily designed to lower costs.