Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by s1artibartfast » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 5:20 PM UTC

epylar wrote: post #99

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…

Was it rational given the information we had at the time to think we would sustain that kind of rapid growth, the public health emergency wouldn't end, we wouldn't get inflation from the supply chain issues and the money printing?

What is the cost benefit for acting or not acting? Everybody seems to be treating this as a binary decision which it is not.

When running a business, it can be entirely reasonable to invest in something you think is unlikely to actually happen if the potential reward times the low chance is greater than the cost.

If you strip away all the bad armchair economics, I think what people are really upset about is the idea that gambling with people's jobs is an acceptable cost.

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

#152

Post by Aunche » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

Tostino wrote: post #136

k8t wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was obvious, did you initiate any shorts while it was happening?

The market can stay irrational far longer than you can stay solvent...

That logic only applies if you have unlimited potential downside. If they were really certain, they could have bought put options.

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

#153

Post by AlbertCory » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

foul wrote: post #103

AlbertCory wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shareholders are mostly creditors You need to understand the fundamental difference between debt and equity. A creditor gets his money back with interest, and that's all. The firm could prosper or flail and it makes no difference as long as they pay him back. If the firm goes bankrupt, he's first in line for what's left of it. A stockholder might get nothing back, but if the firm prospers, he shares in it. He's las…

"Mostly" is there exactly because they trade risk for power (and a virtually endless profit, in the best case scenario). Edit: With that power they may notice a gap in capital during a financial crisis, and they may force the firm to fill it with layoffs.

I don't know if you've ever studied econ, accounting, or finance, but I doubt it.

the second sentence is beyond normal ignorance. We're done here.

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

#154

Post by epistemer » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

djfobbz wrote: post #14

oifjsidjf wrote: post #4

[flagged]

Mostly all publications these days are supported/funded by outside “open societies or foundations” that want to further their own agenda. Unless it’s independent journalism, don’t expect these entities to objectively report anything.

Not to mention funded by foreign governments to further their own agenda.

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

#155

Post by colinmorelli » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

snotrockets wrote: post #150

colinmorelli wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the bar for asking a CEO to quit is "you did not correctly predict the future" then we're going to have to ask most CEOs to quit at some point. And most employees for that matter. The issue I have is with broad strokes generalizations that layoffs indicate a failure of a CEO. They don't necessarily mean that. Any more than shipping a bug to production indicates a failure of an engineer who should now be fired. Sim…

The CEO job is to choose the best prediction of the future from those available to them, and make sure the company executes on it. So yes, that's the bar.

But as you just said, it's to make the _best_ prediction of the future based on those available, not necessarily the right one. You hope that over time of making enough educated bets, enough pan out correct for overall company success. Companies are often wrong about many (perhaps most) things. They're just right often enough to keep succeeding.

As the markets clearly priced in during the pandemic, this was the best prediction of the future. As measured not just by the CEO, but the response of consumers and the public markets. You would be hard-pressed, without the benefit of today's hindsight, to make a reasonable argument for why this wasn't the right decision to make based on the data in front of you.

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

#156

Post by gwright » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #104

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.

The managerial class looting public companies for outsized compensation while taking near-zero risk, is a huge problem in the modern economy. Being a steward of an already-giant company...one that has product-market fit, reliable sales/distribution channels, household brand awareness, and a position of gravity in the markets...is infinitely easier than building something from scratch. Nobody who was employee #1567 sh…

> The managerial class looting public companies for outsized compensation while taking near-zero risk, is a huge problem in the modern economy.

Has it ever not been a problem? In any type of economy? In any type of company? Seems like this a human nature problem and not a "modern economy" problem.

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

#157

Post by colinmorelli » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 5:24 PM UTC

sharemywin wrote: post #149

tyre wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the measured take. What happens if the COVID lockdown demand surge happens and companies don’t hire? Customers don’t get what they want. Businesses that want to move online can’t or have a worse experience. The companies themselves are under-resourced for the actual demand and can’t invest in the future of their business because they’re struggling to keep the lights on. I understand people are pissed about la…

Why hire and not use contractors.

I'm not sure how "farm this out to the 1099's" is a solution to this problem. You're shedding the expense either way, and the same group of people who are frustrated about the layoffs now are also frustrated at organizations who find loopholes to use "contractors" instead of "employees" to avoid benefits, taxes, etc.

But, the bigger issue is, knowing that you should give this to contractors would have required the same foresight that would lead to you not hiring anyway. In other words, if you knew enough to know that you shouldn't hire full time people because you might lay them off, then you probably knew enough to not do this in the first place...so you wouldn't have to let anyone go.

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

#158

Post by robocat » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 5:25 PM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #104

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.

The managerial class looting public companies for outsized compensation while taking near-zero risk, is a huge problem in the modern economy. Being a steward of an already-giant company...one that has product-market fit, reliable sales/distribution channels, household brand awareness, and a position of gravity in the markets...is infinitely easier than building something from scratch. Nobody who was employee #1567 sh…

> The managerial class looting public companies for outsized compensation while taking near-zero risk, is a huge problem in the modern economy.

From the public’s point-of-view, the “software class” are looting the public: outsized compensation for a risk of say 2% (20% fired over ten years).

Nobody who was employee #13370 should ever be granted $100k+ of equity in a business they didn't build.

I’m being sarcastic: but so many arguments against the “managerial class” can equally be made against the wealthy privileged software engineers earning $X00k (including stock options/RSUs etcetera).

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

#159

Post by montagg » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 5:25 PM UTC

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.

People don’t have the guts to make the changes necessary to truly shift how power is distributed, because it would be painful to every level of society until it settled. I believe where we are today is our local maxima until something more tragic than the pandemic happens that shifts public appetite for large structural changes to our (at least western) society.

I’m all for smaller changes occurring where possible, like worker reps on boards, more employee ownership, wealth taxes—something is better than nothing—but we won’t change the fact that power compounds, and gaining enough power allows you to evade all those rules such that those incentives don’t matter at a certain point. Changing that requires more chaos and uncertainty than most people have an appetite for today, and we should all be clear-eyed about that when saying things like “let’s change the system.” I believe it will change and we can change it, but I also believe it can only happen in response to trauma.

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

#160

Post by pavon » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 5:26 PM UTC

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…

Agreed. I'm all in favor of holding CEOs accountable for bad decisions, as we've all seen companies' value (both real and stock) destroyed due to idiotic short-sighted management decisions, only for them to insanely well compensated. But that's not what this is. They made reasonable decisions based on the information they had, and then markets changed.

I think where this is really stemming from is that these market swings hurt people, and those being hurt feel the CEO should share in that. And there is merit to that argument, that austerity measures should impact CEOs and upper management just like they do the lower ranks, regardless of fault. These people are in a better financial position to weather the swings. Their compensation has a lot more margin or "fat" to cut into before it becomes painful, and thus can save a number of jobs that might otherwise have to be cut. Most importantly it shows solidarity with the workforce. It makes it feel more like this is an external event that is happening to us, not something that the CEO is inflicting on the staff.