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Automate the CEOs

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Re: Automate the CEOs

#51

Post by nickelcitymario »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #34
nickelcitymario wrote: post #24

Close. Automate middle management. All the things mentioned in the article really are prime candidates for automation. But that's management, not leadership. Management is primed to be automated. See Marshall Brain's book "Manna" for a great take on what's possible here. Leadership is not. LLMs are great at doing the right things when there's a general consensus on what the right things are. Best practices, etc. But…

50% of what middle management is what secretaries used to do. If I ever run my own company I will hire a team of secretaries to work with my developers and our productivity will shoot through the roof. No everyone is organized, good at scheduling, following up on things, focusing at work, interpersonal discussions, sending memos, navigating bureaucracy, etc. A great secretary allows you to focus on getting developmen…

Completely agreed. I was a marketing director for about a year and a half, and I stepped back from it because I was personally spending about 60 hours a week on items I would consider management, which I've never been that interested in. I'm interested in leadership; in building productive relationships; and excelling as both a marketer and developer.

If I'd had a secretary or assistant or something to handle keeping on top of projects and KPIs, I would have been able to focus on being great as a leader. Alas, that wasn't an option, so I got out of the way for someone who excels as a manager to take my place.

On the plus side (and admittedly an aside as well), stepping out of that role allowed me to write and publish a book in 6 months, which is something I'd always wanted to do but couldn't find the time for.

Re: Automate the CEOs

#53

Post by xp84 »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #34
nickelcitymario wrote: post #24

Close. Automate middle management. All the things mentioned in the article really are prime candidates for automation. But that's management, not leadership. Management is primed to be automated. See Marshall Brain's book "Manna" for a great take on what's possible here. Leadership is not. LLMs are great at doing the right things when there's a general consensus on what the right things are. Best practices, etc. But…

50% of what middle management is what secretaries used to do. If I ever run my own company I will hire a team of secretaries to work with my developers and our productivity will shoot through the roof. No everyone is organized, good at scheduling, following up on things, focusing at work, interpersonal discussions, sending memos, navigating bureaucracy, etc. A great secretary allows you to focus on getting developmen…

So much this. And also this applies to many roles. I heard similar from people who ran buying and merchandising teams at my old company: “Why are they paying me to file my expense report? An assistant could do this and then I could spend an additional hour doing my job!!”

I hadn’t ever really thought about this until then. It seems like most companies just think “having an assistant or secretary is extravagance” so obviously they can’t afford it. But if they really knew what kind of unskilled grunt work highly-paid people spend so much time doing I think they would change their minds.

Re: Automate the CEOs

#54

Post by coldpie »

jonas21 wrote: post #43
foldr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is certainly the view of many people who aren't writers or journalists. We'll see if it plays out. Jobs do tend to appear simpler than they really are when looking in from the outside. >They did this to themselves. And who set this bad direction? The CEO. This hardly adds to the case for not replacing him with an AI.

It is also the view of many working journalists, or at least the ones I know. And it's not like some CEO decided "hey, let's pivot to churning out low-quality clickbait because I really like that stuff." They were forced to by the shift of ad budgets from print to more targeted advertising and the consolidation of news readership into a small number of well-known publications. Though I do agree that it's equally unfa…

> They were forced to by the shift of ad budgets from print to more targeted advertising

Indeed. As with almost everything else terrible about the world today, the root of the problem is targeted-advertising-based business models.

Re: Automate the CEOs

#55

Post by nickelcitymario »

floydnoel wrote: post #39
nickelcitymario wrote: post #24

Close. Automate middle management. All the things mentioned in the article really are prime candidates for automation. But that's management, not leadership. Management is primed to be automated. See Marshall Brain's book "Manna" for a great take on what's possible here. Leadership is not. LLMs are great at doing the right things when there's a general consensus on what the right things are. Best practices, etc. But…

those leaders come around so incredibly rarely, that movies get made about it!

True, but if you look at the top-performing companies, they tend to be driven by risk-taking, rule-breaking leaders.

Re: Automate the CEOs

#56

Post by passwordoops »

bumby wrote: post #11
mxstbr wrote: post #4

…writes a person who's never been a CEO before. Which is not to say that AI won't be immensely helpful for running companies; just that once you're in the role for two days you realize that replacing that role entirely isn't going to happen. > AI can win at chess now. You think being a CEO is harder than chess? Come on. Being a CEO isn't like playing chess. Being a CEO is more like a really complex version of self-dr…

Chess also has a rigid, well-defined set of rules. Business does not. Being a CEO requires combining a lot of (sometimes nebulous) mental models, each with a degree of uncertainty, to some overall business strategy. I think it was Sam Harris who pointed out this is why there are child prodigies in subjects like math and chess, but none in something like political science.

"Chess also has a rigid, well-defined set of rules. Business does not"

I believe every MBA Program, Management Department and Executive Coach would beg to differ

Re: Automate the CEOs

#57

Post by samvher »

andsoitis wrote: post #32
EliRivers wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would they? I understand that in many cases, CEOs are often selected by, and their remuneration awarded by, boards made up of incestuous groupings of people who rely on each other in the same way. Their incentive is to award big paydays to each other. Do you have any evidence that boards would not do this?

> I understand that in many cases, CEOs are often selected by, and their remuneration awarded by, boards made up of incestuous groupings of people who rely on each other in the same way. Can you give one or two examples?

This Wikipedia page is worth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlocking_directorate

Re: Automate the CEOs

#58

Post by b112 »

smcleod wrote: post #46
nickelcitymario wrote: post #24

Close. Automate middle management. All the things mentioned in the article really are prime candidates for automation. But that's management, not leadership. Management is primed to be automated. See Marshall Brain's book "Manna" for a great take on what's possible here. Leadership is not. LLMs are great at doing the right things when there's a general consensus on what the right things are. Best practices, etc. But…

Absolutely. I have almost this exact conversation with folks all the time. The majority of managers are dead weight and often have a negative impact on performance and culture. Leaders (natural or learned) are incredibly valuable. Managers are overhead.

This already happened once, in the 80s. A massive reduction of the 'middle class', by eliminating massive amounts of middle management.

Managers aren't overhead, it's an absurd statement, because it's an absolute. Managers allow leaders to extend their reach. Absolutely no leader can scale beyond a certain point. At all.

Managers allow for that. They're essential, beyond a certain org size.

Now, I will agree that some should not be managers! But that is the same for any profession. You need to churn, to chop off those not performing, or poorly suited to the task.

Re: Automate the CEOs

#59

Post by nickelcitymario »

xp84 wrote: post #53
calvinmorrison wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50% of what middle management is what secretaries used to do. If I ever run my own company I will hire a team of secretaries to work with my developers and our productivity will shoot through the roof. No everyone is organized, good at scheduling, following up on things, focusing at work, interpersonal discussions, sending memos, navigating bureaucracy, etc. A great secretary allows you to focus on getting developmen…

So much this. And also this applies to many roles. I heard similar from people who ran buying and merchandising teams at my old company: “Why are they paying me to file my expense report? An assistant could do this and then I could spend an additional hour doing my job!!” I hadn’t ever really thought about this until then. It seems like most companies just think “having an assistant or secretary is extravagance” so o…

In my experience, so purely subjective, high-paid leaders/managers spend upwards of 90% of their time on things that do not justify the pay. The same was true for me. I can't tell you how often I felt simultaneously underpaid for the value I COULD bring, and radically overpaid for the work I was required to perform.

Re: Automate the CEOs

#60

Post by foldr »

jonas21 wrote: post #43
foldr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is certainly the view of many people who aren't writers or journalists. We'll see if it plays out. Jobs do tend to appear simpler than they really are when looking in from the outside. >They did this to themselves. And who set this bad direction? The CEO. This hardly adds to the case for not replacing him with an AI.

It is also the view of many working journalists, or at least the ones I know. And it's not like some CEO decided "hey, let's pivot to churning out low-quality clickbait because I really like that stuff." They were forced to by the shift of ad budgets from print to more targeted advertising and the consolidation of news readership into a small number of well-known publications. Though I do agree that it's equally unfa…

We'll see how successful the autogenerated clickbait farms end up being. But nothing you're saying is really making a case for the company needing a visionary human intelligence for its CEO. If the entire business model of the company is strictly determined by external conditions, then the whole thing seems ripe for automation.
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