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Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

businessinsider.com

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Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#31

Post by peoplearepeople »

dangwhy wrote: post #21
throwaway2847 wrote: post #2

My company did a big round of layoffs and it was pretty revealing that not a single director or above were laid off. Despite reduced headcount, the org chart got DEEPER in some cases. For all the talk of bloat in the tech world, nobody wants to point fingers at directors who have little to do but schedule very expensive meetings with the directors under them.

Meta seems to be flattenning the org and mark has publicly clamied that he doesn't doesn't managers of managers and will lay them off next round.

How many levels of management is the target? It somewhat caps organization size unless you want someone to have a comical number of direct reports

Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#32

Post by nightski »

njovin wrote: post #30
toomuchtodo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The goal of the CEO of a publicly traded company is to make the shareholders money. As much money as possible. This is a poor take. The function of the CEO of a publicly traded company is to execute on major objectives of the firm. This might be optimizing for max profit, but it might not, depending on what your majority shareholders communicate to the board and management (as well as how they vote their shares). A…

I'd like to see a few recent examples of CEOs making decisions for the future health of the company that knowingly lower the stock price for more than 2Q.

There are lots of examples of CEOs making decisions for the future health of the company that are rewarded by Wall Street. The trope that investors only care about the current quarter profits is just bs. In fact in my experience future growth potential is rewarded a lot more by Wall Street than consistent profits.

Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#33

Post by ulfw »

mabbo wrote: post #20

The goal of the CEO of a publicly traded company is to make the shareholders money. As much money as possible. If laying people off is the best way to do that, they'll do it. Blaming the CEO for doing the job they were hired to do seems short-sighted. Blame the broken system that incentivizes this, that makes doing it profitable. And then, let's change the system.

Then why did they hire them?

Something must have gone wrong if you hire 1000 and then fire 1000 a year later. And no, it's not "the economy" for every single (extremely diverse industry) tech company.

Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#35

Post by manuelabeledo »

mabbo wrote: post #20

The goal of the CEO of a publicly traded company is to make the shareholders money. As much money as possible. If laying people off is the best way to do that, they'll do it. Blaming the CEO for doing the job they were hired to do seems short-sighted. Blame the broken system that incentivizes this, that makes doing it profitable. And then, let's change the system.

If their job is to make money for the shareholders, and quarterly reports show that they are either making less money, or incurring in losses, then they aren't doing their job.

They laid off people who had little to zero influence in defining the company mission, trying to cut spending. This suggests that the C-suite over-spent.

> Blaming the CEO for doing the job they were hired to do seems short-sighted. Blame the broken system that incentivizes this, that makes doing it profitable.

You can do both. A CEO would not need to lay off people if their long term plans worked accordingly, which means that they suck at their job. It's easy being the boss when everything goes fine and everyone buys your stuff. When things turn rough, these CEOs would issue a sorrowful apology, lay off tens of thousands, and still pocket hundreds of millions for the foreseeable future.

Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#36

Post by foul »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #22
mabbo wrote: post #20

The goal of the CEO of a publicly traded company is to make the shareholders money. As much money as possible. If laying people off is the best way to do that, they'll do it. Blaming the CEO for doing the job they were hired to do seems short-sighted. Blame the broken system that incentivizes this, that makes doing it profitable. And then, let's change the system.

> The goal of the CEO of a publicly traded company is to make the shareholders money. As much money as possible. This is a poor take. The function of the CEO of a publicly traded company is to execute on major objectives of the firm. This might be optimizing for max profit, but it might not, depending on what your majority shareholders communicate to the board and management (as well as how they vote their shares). A…

> The function of the CEO of a publicly traded company is to execute on major objectives of the firm.

Amongst the major objectives of a firm there is honoring debts and shareholders are mostly creditors.

Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#37

Post by anonymousab »

Invictus0 wrote: post #29
toomuchtodo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The goal of the CEO of a publicly traded company is to make the shareholders money. As much money as possible. This is a poor take. The function of the CEO of a publicly traded company is to execute on major objectives of the firm. This might be optimizing for max profit, but it might not, depending on what your majority shareholders communicate to the board and management (as well as how they vote their shares). A…

[flagged]

And profit maximizing in the mid or long term can sometimes require moves that reduce profit in the short term, such as R&D expenditure. Sometimes shareholders will seek a CEO that can solve a pending existential problem rather than maximize short-term profit.

Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#38

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

nightski wrote: post #32
njovin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see a few recent examples of CEOs making decisions for the future health of the company that knowingly lower the stock price for more than 2Q.

There are lots of examples of CEOs making decisions for the future health of the company that are rewarded by Wall Street. The trope that investors only care about the current quarter profits is just bs. In fact in my experience future growth potential is rewarded a lot more by Wall Street than consistent profits.

I think this point would be helped with some examples.

Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#39

Post by glitchc »

The only solution is to form a guild for software engineers.

Control access to the guild through credentials and other means. Provide mentorship and apprenticeship opportunities through the guild. Allow the guild to negotiate rates and working conditions with the industry.

If actors can do it, why can't we? If you want to level the playing field with tech CEOs, that's the way to do it.

Re: Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs

#40

Post by jrd259 »

njovin wrote: post #30
toomuchtodo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The goal of the CEO of a publicly traded company is to make the shareholders money. As much money as possible. This is a poor take. The function of the CEO of a publicly traded company is to execute on major objectives of the firm. This might be optimizing for max profit, but it might not, depending on what your majority shareholders communicate to the board and management (as well as how they vote their shares). A…

I'd like to see a few recent examples of CEOs making decisions for the future health of the company that knowingly lower the stock price for more than 2Q.

Well, Amazon for one.
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