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

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

#241

Post by arrosenberg »

superfrank wrote: post #220
automatic6131 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>when COVID hit and tech companies saw large surges because investors and CEOs saw industries leaping 5-10 years into the future overnight, they hired to support that growth Yes, they all egregiously failed. A massive, widespread, collective failure for which they should lose their jobs, as many other people do. On the face of it, it was obvious, that's not even hindsight bias - it was the topsy turvy world that bad…

I think the fact that so many CEOs got it wrong is actually an argument for why the shouldn't be fired. If one or two CEOs got it wrong, you could argue that they were incompetent, ignorant, or greedy and they should have been better informed because plenty of other CEOs were. Everyone getting something wrong says to me that the failure wasn't down to individual mistakes and there was something larger at play.

All of the C-suite MBAs got hooked on the same meme. That's why monoculture is dangerous.

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

#242

Post by aliswe »

waboremo wrote: post #231
superfrank wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the fact that so many CEOs got it wrong is actually an argument for why the shouldn't be fired. If one or two CEOs got it wrong, you could argue that they were incompetent, ignorant, or greedy and they should have been better informed because plenty of other CEOs were. Everyone getting something wrong says to me that the failure wasn't down to individual mistakes and there was something larger at play.

If your CEO is a lemming, they are not capable of leading a company. They should be fired. If you want to see a real leader, look at Tim Cook. He made decisions based specifically on where the company is, where it's going, and already factored in external factors (such as the pandemic growth). Contrast this to dozens of other "CEO"s who made a horrible decision hastily, executed layoffs horribly wrong, and then vague…

why would a company like apple need to hire more people because of covid though?

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

#243

Post by jedberg »

automatic6131 wrote: post #102
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…

>when COVID hit and tech companies saw large surges because investors and CEOs saw industries leaping 5-10 years into the future overnight, they hired to support that growth Yes, they all egregiously failed. A massive, widespread, collective failure for which they should lose their jobs, as many other people do. On the face of it, it was obvious, that's not even hindsight bias - it was the topsy turvy world that bad…

> collective failure for which they should lose their jobs, as many other people do.

Only bad companies fire people for taking risks and failing. Good companies reward that behavior if the risk was reasonable and the learnings were positive. They fire people who take unnecessary risk.

Hiring into the pandemic was a good risk in my opinion.

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

#244

Post by Apocryphon »

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.

And it's arguable that this dire state of journalism was caused by tech eating traditional print media.

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

#245

Post by NineStarPoint »

cudgy wrote: post #209
crazygringo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the face of it, it was obvious If it was obvious, then the market would have priced it in. But it didn't. So the crowdsourced collective wisdom was indeed that industries were leaping 5-10 years into the future overnight. That was the thing that was "obvious" to most people. You may have disagreed at the time, and if you'd shorted stocks you could have made some money. But the idea that "on the face of it, it wa…

Actually, hiring for a future that is based on economic predictions that are notoriously inaccurate due to many factors, including simple personal biases of the experts making the predictions is quite foolish if you think rationally about it.

Not when the downsides are unbalanced. If the future does not come to pass and you acted on it, you have to lay-off 10% of your workforce. If the future does come to pass and you didn’t act on it, other companies that did act on it eat your lunch and you may end up with many more people losing jobs than just 10%. So the question is if there should be truly zero level of faith in economic predictions, or if there statistically enough truth there for it to be worth steering towards the options with the best upside/downside ratio.

Ultimately CEOs of large companies are paid tons of money to be the person responsible for the company direction, so holding them responsible for making a wrong decision is fine. Just wanted to say that while hindsight is 20/20, it’s not necessarily the case that it was a poor decision in the moment when sometimes you have to play the odds.

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

#247

Post by joxel »

robocat wrote: post #158
pembrook wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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: bu…

The difference is the software engineers are creating wealth with that paycheck. Managers are extracting it.

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

#248

Post by kerkeslager »

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.

Holding CEOs accountable or even firing them, would provide a powerful incentive to not do this.

And more to the point, "I was following incentives" is no different from "I was following orders." It doesn't become suddenly okay to do harm just because there's an incentive to do harm.

Hacker News and corporate culture in general are toxic because of people blaming market conditions instead of taking responsibility for their own actions.

You're literally just saying we can't disincentivize sociopathic behavior, because those behaving sociopathically are just following incentives.

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

#249

Post by Apocryphon »

NineStarPoint wrote: post #245
cudgy wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, hiring for a future that is based on economic predictions that are notoriously inaccurate due to many factors, including simple personal biases of the experts making the predictions is quite foolish if you think rationally about it.

Not when the downsides are unbalanced. If the future does not come to pass and you acted on it, you have to lay-off 10% of your workforce. If the future does come to pass and you didn’t act on it, other companies that did act on it eat your lunch and you may end up with many more people losing jobs than just 10%. So the question is if there should be truly zero level of faith in economic predictions, or if there stat…

> If the future does not come to pass and you acted on it, you have to lay-off 10% of your workforce. If the future does come to pass and you didn’t act on it, other companies that did act on it eat your lunch and you may end up with many more people losing jobs than just 10%.

These hypotheticals are way too favorable towards all of the non-Apple tech companies that gorged themselves during the irrational exuberance of the past two years. Since when was Google or Meta in danger of being outcompeted by a rival company who overhired to eat their lunch, rather than by their own mistakes? Were all of these overhired personnel really being put on vital projects necessary for the survival of these companies?

Perhaps some companies this analysis held true. But in most cases it seems just like a reactionary keeping up with the Joneses overhiring spree. Companies saw others doing it, and they imitated, not out of some sound financial policy.

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

#250

Post by s1artibartfast »

jonathankoren wrote: post #163
crazygringo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the face of it, it was obvious If it was obvious, then the market would have priced it in. But it didn't. So the crowdsourced collective wisdom was indeed that industries were leaping 5-10 years into the future overnight. That was the thing that was "obvious" to most people. You may have disagreed at the time, and if you'd shorted stocks you could have made some money. But the idea that "on the face of it, it wa…

> If it was obvious, then the market would have priced it in. Bubbles don’t exist? I’m sorry, but to paraphrase an old quote, the market’s can remain irrational, longer than your faith in a rational market.

I think that's a different question then if it's obvious.

I don't really understand the obvious claim. If it was obvious to investors and executives then what? They knowingly spent money they knew was a waste?

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