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Automate the CEOs

hamiltonnolan.com

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Re: Automate the CEOs

#71

Post by misja111 »

ajsharp wrote: post #9

If CEOs were as replaceable and disconnected from the outcome of a business as the author suggests, boards would've started doing this long ago and CEO salaries would come down as a result (lots of people want to be CEOs, and by this author's logic, virtually anyone can do it). This is so disconnected from reality it reads like satire.

> .. boards would've started doing this long ago ..

You are assuming here that boards are always acting in the best interest of the share holders. I bet there are many who do, but there are at least as many that act primarily in the interest of themselves. Board membership is a lucrative job without much supervision, if any at all. So nothing is keeping board members from taking it easy. Why rock the boat if this can make you known as difficult? You might not get that 2nd or 3rd board membership then anymore.

You might remember Credit Suisse, the major bank that had to be taken over recently by UBS to avoid bankruptcy: until then it had gone from scandal to scandal for 15 years in a row. 2 CEO's had been sent away in that period (by shareholders) but the president of the board? He could stay, and with him the rest of the board. His salary? 7 million a year.

Re: Automate the CEOs

#72

Post by nickelcitymario »

dangerwill wrote: post #67
optimalsolver wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone in the history of capitalism ever identified themselves as "middle management"? I think most people associate the term middle management with the guy immediately above them. Honestly, a lot of this resembles the "If only the Tsar knew!" mentality in old, imperial Russia.

This isn't a vague term, it means people who manage managers, but who aren't the very top level. You'd have to be pretty delusional to be actively managing a group of managers/teams and not realize you are middle management.

Interesting... I always thought the term meant any manager who isn't at the absolute top. If that's the case, maybe I'm not middle management anymore.

Re: Automate the CEOs

#73

Post by AndrewKemendo »

GartzenDeHaes wrote: post #6

CEO's and mid to upper management are about power, not doing things. Why is it so hard for us to understand something that is so simple and so obvious?

It's been 50 years of full out, balls to the wall capitalist propaganda that CEOs and "business leaders" are the god kings of modernity

Re: Automate the CEOs

#74

Post by EliRivers »

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?

I understand it's typically not so brazen that two people are explicitly setting each other's pay, but an incestuous ecosystem. There's a fair amount of literature examining it and finding things to be concerned about.

For example, Baker, Bivens & Schieder (2019), "Reining in CEO compensation and curbing the rise of inequality", suggests that compensation for CEOs "is more likely to reflect CEOs’ close ties with the corporate board members who set their pay." https://www.epi.org/publication/reining-in-ceo-compensation-...

Bebchuk and Fried (2004), "The Unfulfilled Promise of Executive Compensation", is a literal book discussing it all; it suggests (amongst other things) that CEO remuneration is not always closely tied to company performance but can be influenced by peer benchmarking and the interdependence of corporate boards.

An old (1992) article in Management Review (V81, Issue 5) "Can we put the brakes on CEO pay?", contains suggestive ideas such as "Most CEOs have invited these people to be on board," Denton adds. "It's easy [for directors to be relatively generous.", so this is by no means a new situation.

And of course, veteran shareholder activist Rob Monks has been complaining about all this, and a lot more, for decades.

Re: Automate the CEOs

#75

Post by nickelcitymario »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #69
candiddevmike wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most corporate structures are feudal. Folks should refer to their VPs as the Duke/Duchess of Engineering.

The modern corporation is literally a dictatorship: "form of government in which one person or a small group possesses absolute power without effective constitutional limitations." Companies are *governed* by unimpeachable, unelected, all powerful groups that in practice treat employees like literal slaves (you don't have to be chattel or physically abused to be a slave). However because almost all employment agreeme…

I'd love to hear more about your non-stock cooperative. How is it structured? I'm genuinely fascinated.

Re: Automate the CEOs

#76

Post by the_sleaze9 »

sf4lifer wrote: post #38

Truly successful CEOs make decisions where there is no definitive data and end up being right. It's not clear to me AI's would be good at that. Most CEO's have a chief of staff, that's probably something AI could replace.

And Finance (soon), Legal (less soon).

Re: Automate the CEOs

#78

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Automate the CEOs

#79

Post by zirgs »

HPsquared wrote: post #22

If the CEO is an AI, that will play well with the AI investing systems that allocate capital. Ironically it looks like the truck drivers and shelf stackers will be the last people to go.

Automating dexterity-based tasks is very expensive. Much more expensive than hiring a teenager or an immigrant.

Re: Automate the CEOs

#80

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

nickelcitymario wrote: post #59
xp84 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I completely agree with this. Not much more to add other than that, but you've put into words what I have been thinking of my own situation.
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