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CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?

newstatesman.com

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Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?

#51

Post by Aperocky »

tyingq wrote: post #38
cdirkx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

See Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC. And then the second tier below that. They also offer the lead-in service of making your idea into pretty slides with their logo, so it's clear later that they endorsed the idea from the get-go.

haha this.

This is exactly 'Scapegoat as a Service'.

Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?

#52

Post by anotheryou »

spamizbad wrote: post #20

At the very least, you could do a hybrid model: An AI that makes 80% of the decisions and routes 20% to a human to help guide the decision making process.

Touches on an interesting point. I think the data input is highly unstructured and the output not very regular.

Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?

#53

Post by slig »

klyrs wrote: post #10

Why 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.

That happens with non-profits too...

Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?

#54

Post by pasquinelli »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #46
unfamiliar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Presumably because the market dictates their salary Ahh yes, when the "market" is primarily made up of other CEOs (i.e. who sit on corporate boards), whose primary vested interested is to ensure CEO salaries stay astronomically high.

isn't the solution, then, to put the workers on the board?

Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?

#55

Post by fakedang »

tyingq wrote: post #38
cdirkx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

See Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC. And then the second tier below that. They also offer the lead-in service of making your idea into pretty slides with their logo, so it's clear later that they endorsed the idea from the get-go.

Uh, I'm pretty sure BCG is in the first tier, and the others you mention are in the third tier, when it comes to the Scapegoat as a Service business.

Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?

#56

Post by _ZeD_ »

cdirkx wrote: post #30
smoldesu wrote: post #8

The 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.

In italy a classic movie series "Fantozzi" has a scene dedicated to a "career" as scapegoat[1]. I really cannot suggest the first two movies (and the original book) enough.

[1] (partially NSFW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EJ3VyM12qM

Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?

#57

Post by lotsofpulp »

Traster wrote: post #48
unfamiliar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The simple answer is that people don't hire cheaper CEOs because the people who hire CEOs are the boards of companies and the boards of companies are mainly staffed by CEOs of other companies who unsurprisingly are incentivized to advocate for higher CEO pay.

They why do people who own the companies not oust board members who are wasting their money?

Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?

#59

Post by k__ »

chrisseaton wrote: post #45
klyrs wrote: post #10

Why 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.

> Why is paying them less not seen as an option? I don't understand - do you think companies are voluntarily paying them money that they don't have to? If you won't pay them what they want they'll go elsewhere to someone that will. Just like you would, I presume.

"the people who hire CEOs are the boards of companies and the boards of companies are mainly staffed by CEOs of other companies who unsurprisingly are incentivized to advocate for higher CEO pay."

Re: CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?

#60

Post by harperlee »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #42

CEOs aren't paid for the day-to-day value they provide to the company. They're paid for the long-term, strategic value the owners think they might provide the company in comparison to other candidates. So if you think CEO Candidate X will make you a 3x return on your investment, but CEO Candidate Y will make you a 5x return, it's almost certainly worth it to pay him/her the extra $200K to get you there, if that's the…

They should then be compensated with a leveraged long-term derivative product that pays based on the stock difference between their company and the industry, 5 to 10 years apart.

"You want to be insanely rich? Here's a huge company that's not yours as a resource, now make it so it is the best one in 10 years!"

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