joining us to show an opposing view of that is martin whitaker, the ceo of the nonprofit research firml. welcome. nice to have you here, marti >> thank you, sue. thanks for having me on. >> our guest last night made thg point he t it was a bad decision. he he is he said it had been put in place before and it didn't work, and because shareholders a giving money to the corporation they should be put first. what is wrong with that argument? >> well, for one thing it not really the case that looking after your workers or treating your cusmers wellr making great products or investing in the communities where you operate is antithetical to treating your shareholders wes. itot an either/or game. what we found is the businesses that look after stakeholders do better in the market. so weathink it is a g move. we applaud what business round table has done. you know, this is an historic think.we it also aligns with how the american people want companies to behave. we have surveyed thousands of people over the last five years all across america, all different backgrounds, and this is exactly what

welcome martin whitaker here for today's conversation. good to have you.ll 95,000 or isidore the there? frexit's north of their town. were not surprised, as you said, about the ceos committing to a stakeholder model. three main points, five years of polling, we know that this is exactly what the american people want and exactly the kind of stakeholder groups that they themselves have identified. it brings business into alignment with that. second, we need businesses focusing on big social problems. it's the only way we're going to solve them. lastly, we think it's great for shareholders. businesses that do well on these issues tend to do better in the market. think, is one of the main takeaways. david: if in fact companies do better when adhering to these principles, why don't more corporations do it? if this is a way to make more money, why are they so irrational? >> it's hard to do, first of all, they look across the entire operation in and say where can we do better and generate a social and that her mental outcome that helps us be better as a company o