I don’t think that’s an entirely fair characterization. They obviously spend a great deal of time focusing on what their (human) shareholders want.

Well, that's fair. Overpaid managers and principle engineers spun "secret projects" and products like Glass well to be an elitist experience for special people. But I won't forgive not letting Wave bake and mature.

Q: Do they have non-human shareholders I don't know about, or do they have shareholders who lack qualities present in most living human beings?

I’ve only met a few of their significant shareholders and based on that, I’d say the jury is still out.

I remember being excited by wave when the demo hit but never had a use for what it offered at that point in my career.

Hard to say what Wave could've become, but in Google fashion, they didn't really try and threw it away. Maybe it could've become a Discord-like meets Zoom platform but with more integrations.

Honestly, I'd like to see something like a hosted FOSS Hubot (bot) for Signal that can tap into zillions of IoT and cloud integrations.