I wish I had understood this years ago. I probably would have found a better place to work.

Ehhhhh

Stock price is absolutely tied to the perceived performance and anticipated future performance of the company.

The problem is that most departments of a company are profit centers and therefore there is a huge incentive to squeeze the most return (product features, sales, etc) from that investment (your salary). They will abuse you just hard enough so you don’t quit. Or they will abuse you endlessly because the churn is factored into it.

The company doing well is only loosely tied to morale. Yes happier employees probably perform better but it’s not the best return on the investment.