Yes, the Zcash Company is a for-profit company, and it will be focused on increasing value to its shareholders. The Zcash Foundation is a non-profit, which will have a mandate to protect and improve the Zcash protocol for all users.
Now, obviously most things that benefit users also benefit the Zcash Company in some ways! So there is good incentive alignment already between the Company and the broader ecosystem, however that alignment is not perfect.
You asked for an example of something that would benefit the Company but not be in the interests of all users. The first example that comes to mind is that the Zcash Company could get into the business of selling enterprise software to banks. They certainly are extremely interested in the technology, so we’re in a good position if we want to start selling a product based on that technology to them. This could be really valuable to the shareholders in the company.
It wouldn’t necessarily bring a lot of benefit to the users of the open blockchain. Although it might, if we could use the revenue from the enterprise side to build better and better technology that we also open source and everyone can benefit from using it.
But, whether or not that strategy would result in better or worse results for the open community in the long run, it is a valid strategy that the Company could consider taking if it needs the money.
It would not be a valid strategy for the Foundation, which should not do things that come with a risk of potentially not helping the users, or that require non-transparency, or that increase incentive misalignment between the Foundation and the users.