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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

#191

Post by legutierr »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #165
legutierr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are conflating several things here - unemployment, workers' rights, and economy of scale. They are not necessarily connected, e.g. lower unemployment and higher wages don't push managers to take risks on massive hirings. These things are connected, but you have it backwards. Managers' taking risks on massive hirings leads directly to lower unemployment and higher wages.

> Managers' taking risks on massive hirings leads directly to lower unemployment and higher wages. That's also not true, because it excludes a myriad of parameters, some of which we are able to observe in current trends, like inflation and talent pool size.

Is there only one explanation for lower unemployment and higher wages? No, and clearly I'm not saying anything like that.

But would you seriously argue that when a company hires 100 people it doesn't lower unemployment by 100 people? And that when 100 people receive job offers, their ability to negotiate higher salaries does not also increase?

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

#192

Post by dnissley »

cnelsenmilt wrote: post #173
dnissley wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who holds the ceo responsible? The board. If the board themselves would have made the same hiring calls, it's unlikely they could fault the ceo for making those calls as well. By extension -- who doesn't hold the ceo responsible? The court of public opinion, which is what all of these comments and articles spilling barrels of ink on this issue think should be the case, but is not actually the case (and for obviously…

But they operate in a democracy, and part of a healthy democracy is having policy debates in public, exactly like this.

Sure, not going to argue with that.

On the other hand, these debates seem quite one sided. The boards of these companies aren't firing their CEOs. Why aren't any of the op-ed authors curious enough to ask about this? This author literally links to another one of his own op-eds in order to dismiss any such arguments about whether or not this is pertinent! They've clearly already made up their minds on this point.

Or is the real point not to have a debate, but to get people riled up and indignant about something that will always have bad optics (even when it's necessary)?

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

#194

Post by raymondgh »

Is it the view of the tech CEOs bosses (shareholders) that anything has been done wrong? It seems that they are responsible for their successes and failures both, and layoffs are only seen as failures because CEOs are pitching them as such to sell their layoffs to employees.

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

#195

Post by RyEgswuCsn »

sharemywin wrote: post #142
colinmorelli wrote: post #86

Regardless of individual opinions on whether CEOs should be terminated for layoffs or not - there's a surprising amount of comments here that seem to not understand that growing companies don't hire for today, but for where they want to be tomorrow. Where you want to be tomorrow is based on where you and your investors believe the world is going. If the world materially changes enough to shift your expectations about…

I just hate the CEO's saying "I take full responsibility for what happened" I call bullshit. If you did you'd quit in shame.

I thought what they meant was just "you are laid off not because you had performed poorly". Of course, it is still the CEO's decision to over-hire, but the parent suggested that over-hiring was not CEO's fault either, but a necessary move to capture the additional growth.

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

#196

Post by eschulz »

lamontcg wrote: post #184

Millennials suddenly wake up one morning and realize that they've been living in a system of capitalism this whole time (once they're the ones actually affected by layoffs).

In a profit and loss system, it is often the loss part that gives the best lessons into how the market works. Being fired is at least a very good learning opportunity, although certainly not an easy one.

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

#197

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#198

Post by [deleted] »

aeternum wrote: post #188
jackmott42 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a very odd discussion to have since, even when running a company well, no public company should be compensating its CEO to the tune of even 1 million a year. It is absolutely a ruling class leeching off society that this happens. It doesn't happen everywhere or even in america in the past, big companies can be run without this behavior. It isn't supply and demand, it is cronyism. Should a CEO be allowed to get…

Some ICs/devs make 1 mil a year

[deleted]

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

#199

Post by HDThoreaun »

rcme wrote: post #61
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. If laying people off is the best way to do that, they'll do it. How is failing to predict market conditions a few months into the future and over hiring part of making a publicly traded company money? If anything, these layoffs are an admission from management that they're wasting money.

If there's a 10% chance that your business is forever upended, and if you don't react you'll be left in the dust is the right decision "90% chance we'll be good, no need to change plans" or "Hey we're making too much money to take any risks here, lets adapt to the 10% chance, and if the 90% comes to pass we'll just go back to the way it was"? I think it's pretty clear that tech CEOs made the right choice from investors perspective. I don't see how you can come to the conclusion that they failed to predict market conditions when you don't know what odds they came up with.
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