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OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

overpaid.lol

201–210 of 395 posts

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#201
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are confusing CEO pay with CEO ability. There is plenty of examples of companies doing poorly until a new CEO comes in, and others of a company doing well until the CEO retires and a replacement comes in. Ivy types have a poor history of figuring out which is which in advance though.

I think it's the other way around. They're not talking about CEO ability, they're talking about CEO performance, which aren't the same. Money follows performance (based on outcomes, not actual talent). It's like professional sports - win a championship, get a big payday, regardless of how it happened.

No, the only thing that matters is what you can negotiate. Since most executives + board vote on their own salaries, which ones have you ever seen negotiated to lower their salaries?

It's an extreme abuse of power, especially since workers are the sole reason why a company is able to succeed or not and they don't get the same privileges as a board + executive.

Not too mention most corporations + startups are setup to encourage the worse forms of human collaboration (dictatorships + centrally planned economies).

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#202
post #78
post #54

I know this is a common trope here, and yeah, plenty of MBA-type CEOs are trash. But speaking as a founder/CEO of a small company, the quality gap between an average hire and top talent at the director level is night and day. Proven talent comes with a massive price tag, but it's almost always worth it. The times I regretted going with the 2nd or 3rd place candidate because they were cheaper ended up setting us back…

But a lot of "proven" talent with a huge price tag is also no good, really achieved what they did elsewhere due to sheer luck/help from a product that couldn't go wrong, and will drag you into a hole with their comp. I have seen this over and over again: Big pedigree, top of the line personality, zero results. Everyone thinks they are hiring the star, not the fraudster, or just the lucky one. That's how we end up wit…

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Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#203
post #54

I know this is a common trope here, and yeah, plenty of MBA-type CEOs are trash. But speaking as a founder/CEO of a small company, the quality gap between an average hire and top talent at the director level is night and day. Proven talent comes with a massive price tag, but it's almost always worth it. The times I regretted going with the 2nd or 3rd place candidate because they were cheaper ended up setting us back…

See, this is something I’ve had to reconcile: founders aren’t CEOs, and CEOs aren’t founders. I remain unconvinced a CEO is needed in any real, modern capacity. A large enough company has a PR person (who can do the interviews and sell the messaging), an Ops person (who translates Board guidance into actionable work for specific teams and vice versa), a slew of specialty technical people, and a Board who generally se…

That's the point isn't it? You overpay a wealthy dude with connections to gain a node on nepotism graph.

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#204
Good satire. I find the "RTO is because of RE valuations" to be the most bizarre thing about the post pandemic work discourse. Office leases are a rounding error to large employers. They are not coercing employees back to the office because their worried about the value of a single portfolio asset falling (assuming they even own it). They are doing it because it's about power. Middle managers do not trust their staff. They need to surveil and police them to feel productive and powerful. The rank-and-file love remote work because we have lives and benefit enormously from the flexibility. The managerial class desperately needs bodies in office to feel like their jobs are worthwhile.

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#205
post #54

I know this is a common trope here, and yeah, plenty of MBA-type CEOs are trash. But speaking as a founder/CEO of a small company, the quality gap between an average hire and top talent at the director level is night and day. Proven talent comes with a massive price tag, but it's almost always worth it. The times I regretted going with the 2nd or 3rd place candidate because they were cheaper ended up setting us back…

Most CEOs are not Lisa Su or Steve Jobs, or even remotely close. Current AI could surely do better than the majority of them.

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah just sit there, keep a steady hand, and project confidence

There are a lot of well-functioning organizations for which that’s exactly what’s needed. Leaders should be paid for outcomes not activities .

Outcomes of leadership are hard to measure.

If you pay by success of the company, noone is going to want to do a 5 year corporate turnaround.

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#207
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a lot of "proven" talent with a huge price tag is also no good, really achieved what they did elsewhere due to sheer luck/help from a product that couldn't go wrong, and will drag you into a hole with their comp. I have seen this over and over again: Big pedigree, top of the line personality, zero results. Everyone thinks they are hiring the star, not the fraudster, or just the lucky one. That's how we end up wit…

> really achieved what they did elsewhere due to sheer luck/help This world view is not falsifiable. Regardless of success you can say it was luck. But I just don’t understand this. In my work we are constantly giving people chances to take on more responsibility, and often they don’t want to, or it doesn’t work out. Why would you expect that you could drop them in as CEO? Are CEOs always the cause of success or fail…

You can't drop everyone in that position but there is a significant number that still could do it. It is not 100% more like 50%/60% luck.

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#208
post #54

I know this is a common trope here, and yeah, plenty of MBA-type CEOs are trash. But speaking as a founder/CEO of a small company, the quality gap between an average hire and top talent at the director level is night and day. Proven talent comes with a massive price tag, but it's almost always worth it. The times I regretted going with the 2nd or 3rd place candidate because they were cheaper ended up setting us back…

No I think for the last 10-15 years, ivy types could legitimately just raise series A type money, run a company like shit, but capital was a moat and so ended up as CEOs. This is actually how the world works

In the startup world they're only really looking to bat better than 10 pct overall to mark success, right? Do we wonder why it's all just a crap shoot?

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I think for the last 10-15 years, ivy types could legitimately just raise series A type money, run a company like shit, but capital was a moat and so ended up as CEOs. This is actually how the world works

"This is actually how the world works" The level to which our algorithmic feeds have made us so confidently wrong about things is so deeply problematic. Tech's original sin keeps biting us back. This rampant cynicism and nihilism borne from constant bombardment of headlines has us acting like we know the personal stories of all leadership all around the world, and it's deeply damaging to our trust in the system. Plen…

I'd argue that the "rampant cynicism and nihilism" and more a result of the environment than algorithms manipulating people, the content is also made by other people, and it just serves up what people want. Your feed is often just a reflection of what you're feeling since everyone has their own feed instead of the reddit or HN approach with a shared feed. Also the phrase is that a few bad apples spoil the batch, nobody cares about the rest of the batch until you can get rid of the bad ones

I'm much more a descriptivist than prescriptivist so if there's a pattern among people I'm inclined to think it's a true issue instead of people just thinking "wrong" en-masse

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#210
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... What are you getting at, I'm genuinely curious? What's wrong with the phrase "top talent"!?

I don't know, sounds very off putting, just like "resources" in "human resources". I get that this is normalized in all the corporations, but one still can choose to use terms that don't reduce people to "value produced".

This is unusually reactive response to normal language.
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