Because China. What we need to automate is lawyers.
CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?
21–30 of 363 posts
Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?
#22"If a role can be outsourced, it can be automated." I really don't see the logic in this statement.
I'm building a house right now, and I sure am excited to learn that I cab replace all these expensive subcontractors with robots!
Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?
#23"If a role can be outsourced, it can be automated." I really don't see the logic in this statement.
It's based on the faulty presumption that labor outsourcing motivations are purely based on cost minimization. Obviously, this falls apart if one considers that outsourcing also occurs for specialized labor that firms prefer not to keep in-house.
A great example of this is legal. If you rewrote the title as "Lawyers are hugely expensive -- why not automate them?" it would sound patently absurd.
Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?
#24The reason we don't automate CEOs is liability: the board of directors/shareholders want someone to hold accountable when bad decisions start getting made. If you pay $4000 for a brand new iCEO that lays off your entire staff, you can really only scream at whoever minted the software making that decision, which often comes with limited liability licenses. Remember, corporate structure is about minimizing your own wor…
I can imagine a scenario where an approval board of 3 or 5 people paid 1/10th a CEO's cost must approve the actions that the iCEO is suggesting rather than give it full autonomy to act indiscriminately. They'd effectively become executive assistants with veto power. If there aren't many things for the iCEO to do, then the board doesn't even need to be employed full-time and perhaps it could even be offloaded entirely onto the company board with a rotating schedule. Though, I imagine many board members don't like the idea that their involvement would then become more involved and they wouldn't be able to sit on as many boards collecting some nice comp/benefits.
Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?
#25"If a role can be outsourced, it can be automated." I really don't see the logic in this statement.
To outsource something you have to be able to unambiguously specify requirements (otherwise costs blow up as you go back and forth). Once you’ve made it truly unambiguous, the next logical step is automation.
This does not follow, since there are things that machines cannot yet do but that humans can. Producing new humans is one such example. It is not at all clear whether "CEO-ing" is another example.
Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?
#26Why is paying them less not seen as an option? I've seen multiple startups struggle because their CEO makes more than 10 qualified technical staff, where the employees burn out because there's no budget to hire the technical staff the company needs.
This is a sign of a startup you should not work at. CEO comp in a startup should be tied to the success of the company in the form of stock. Generally in a tech type startup the salary (cash) of the key developers and the CEO are around the same. The highest comp is on the sales side. The sales team joins late (the founders and CEO should drive sales at the start) and tend to get way less stock. Their comp is based on a base salary and commission which should be uncapped.
Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?
#27I can't help but feel that CEO's are over-valued and it's fundamentally an attribution problem as it's hard to know how much value they actually add.
A comparison would be to fund managers and how the rise of index funds showed they actually added very little value in many cases, and weren't worth their fees.
Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?
#28Why is paying them less not seen as an option? I've seen multiple startups struggle because their CEO makes more than 10 qualified technical staff, where the employees burn out because there's no budget to hire the technical staff the company needs.
Presumably because the market dictates their salary, not a vague notion of what they should be paid.
Or, to reframe the question: why don't people hire cheaper CEOs?
Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?
#29The reason we don't automate CEOs is liability: the board of directors/shareholders want someone to hold accountable when bad decisions start getting made. If you pay $4000 for a brand new iCEO that lays off your entire staff, you can really only scream at whoever minted the software making that decision, which often comes with limited liability licenses. Remember, corporate structure is about minimizing your own wor…
But I don't think they're suggesting getting rid of the entire executive team, or carte-blanche implementing whatever iCEO says to do. They're saying replace the most expensive position with some AI, and let the executive team debate that.
Seems like we could figure out a way to find accountability in that model by assigning it to whoever is best aligned with the decision - and could provide an interesting balance for the board to debate: Why did you decide to go against the machines recommendation?
Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?
#30The reason we don't automate CEOs is liability: the board of directors/shareholders want someone to hold accountable when bad decisions start getting made. If you pay $4000 for a brand new iCEO that lays off your entire staff, you can really only scream at whoever minted the software making that decision, which often comes with limited liability licenses. Remember, corporate structure is about minimizing your own wor…
My new SAAS startup idea; scapegoat as a service.
For a few million dollars you can hire me, put all the blame on me, I say "I take full responsibility" and resign my position.