they just need to communicate their priorities to that manager
Nobody said they should be, silly. But writing like this implies that the writer thinks so. Otherwise ("they communicated their varied and opposing priorities to their manager who was more confused than ever") the point is lost.
No, it doesn't. Don't you know that groups of people can have different opinions and still clearly communicate these opinions, proportionally to how they are distributed in the group? That's one of the basic building blocks of modern societies, starting with the whole concept of democracy.
So the manager proportionally invests in short-term or long-term value? Or sticks to his/her original vision for the company, in some proportion? I'm struggling to make sense of that.
As with our political leaders, the manager made a decision. In his case it was based on his board interaction. He can certainly be judged based on his decision. Just allowing him to wash his hands of it and simply say "I'm doing what I'm told" is way too straightforward in a situation in which there is nuance. [I'm referencing here your comment in which you expressed gratitude to a deity that managers didn't have to worry about things like (quoted from comment you responded to) "ethics, legality, fairness, product quality...".]
Perhaps ethics and fairness shouldn't be lumped with legality and product quality. I don't know how to measure ethics and fairness; I don't really know how to hold a manager accountable for those unless it's written in SOPs or bylaws somewhere (B-Corp?).
FWIW, I find the article entertaining in the same way I find pre-game sports analyses entertaining. Time may tell us whether this decision was a short-term or long-term decision. I'm not convinced that Qualcomm actually 'succumb[ed] to the cult....'" But I find the idea that activist investors can come along and screw up a good thing for their personal short-term benefit and the other stakeholders are for all practical purposes powerless against it frightening. But, hey, it's a scary world.
