Fire the CEO, Introducing the AxO's • Hacker News Board

Re: Fire the CEO, Introducing the AxO's

#31

Post by jimbokun » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC

louwrentius wrote: post #2

I agree, fire the CEO. But I have a slightly different take that doesn't involve AI. What if we indeed get rid of the entire C-suite? Even better still: why are companies and orgs hierarchical? Why is there always a - for lack of a better word - dictator in charge? AI CEO is still an AI dictator. We are permitted to vote, but democracy in everyday life, that's a bridge too far, chaos, riots in the streets, cats and d…

In the US democracy we still have a strong central executive with a lot of decision making power.

Parliamentary systems do not always have a President per se, but generally have a similar role of an individual who can quickly make decisions in emergencies and crises.

So in practice I’m not sure democracies are all that different in practice.

Re: Fire the CEO, Introducing the AxO's

#32

Post by Enk1du » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 9:53 PM UTC

mrhyyyyde wrote: post #10

Absolutely, I've long-doubted the usefulness of a CEO vs the theory of a self-organizing co-op.

I tried to remember the study that put the usefulness of a CEO at 10% of the success of the company and found this Science Direct paper from 2023 on "The CEO effect and performance variation over time" which discusses many studies. tl;dr average is 15-20% but they have fun chewing over the outliers.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104898432...

Re: Fire the CEO, Introducing the AxO's

#33

Post by pixl97 » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 10:00 PM UTC

forgotaccount3 wrote: post #12

ElevenLathe wrote: post #4

Workers ultimately have a job because they are useful to management, and management have a job because they are useful to ownership. Top management has insane levels of compensation as a strategy by ownership to alight management's interests with their own, by turning them into owners. If there is going to be a management layer at all, for example the proposed "A-suite", then their compensation will balloon for exact…

> Top management has insane levels of compensation as a strategy by ownership to alight management's interests with their own, by turning them into owners. If there is going to be a management layer at all, for example the proposed "A-suite", then their compensation will balloon for exactly the same reasons. That is not correct. Owner's don't align top management's interests with the owner's interests by giving them…

>' could just invest in the competitor

I mean, the shareholders would most likely sue them out of existence for doing something like that.

Re: Fire the CEO, Introducing the AxO's

#34

Post by pixl97 » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 10:01 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #24

deepsun wrote: post #21

A big part of my job is responsibility. When AI can go to jail instead of me, I would be happy to let it take my job :)

Isn’t the main point of having a corporation as a legal entity to replace personal liability with corporate liability?

Corporations cannot replace some regulated liability, for example some types of professional engineers.

Re: Fire the CEO, Introducing the AxO's

#35

Post by root_axis » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 10:07 PM UTC

RobRivera wrote: post #15

113 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Workers ultimately have a job because they are useful to managemen Workers have a job because their labour produces value

Eh - sometimes people get hired in bulk to show growth and then get assigned valueless work, or work not necessarily as valuable. Both statements can be true.

> sometimes people get hired in bulk to show growth

Um no, this doesn't happen. Nobody is paying useless people just to "show growth".

Re: Fire the CEO, Introducing the AxO's

#36

Post by drykiss » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 10:09 PM UTC

More generally about companies and how they’re organized - Why do we have “benevolent dictator” CxOs and trickle-down ownership and decision making powers? But bottom-up responsibility for faults and mistakes? I feel like it’s high time to have more democratic systems at our workspaces as well. More of a co-op model of working than a pyramid. Doesn’t make sense at all, for example, that the core engineers who built the google search algorithm would be paid 5x (or further) less than a CEO of Google. And then if they leave Google, they immediately stop receiving “royalty” or compensation for their own code that is still being used by Google and will continue to earn it even more money while they’re gone.

Re: Fire the CEO, Introducing the AxO's

#37

Post by hellcow » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 10:10 PM UTC

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #25

hellcow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they rare? Aren’t credit unions worker cooperatives? Insurance is often structured this way, and I’ve heard of farmer collectives too. I have a worker cooperative grocery store nearby. I do photography as a hobby and there’s all kinds of photography cooperatives, including Magnum which is incredibly famous in that world. I’m in an HOA which is another cooperative. This doesn’t seem rare to me.

Most "co-ops" are customer co-ops (Credit Unions, for example, are owned by their members, most grocery co-ops are membership programs, REI is/was the same). Farmer co-ops are owned by a collection of farmers, to pool resources for selling to consumers, but most employees aren't co-owners. Worker's co-ops are rarer, but you find them in the taxi industry pretty often, and in home care.

Today I learned. Thank you!

Re: Fire the CEO, Introducing the AxO's

#38

Post by ElevenLathe » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 10:21 PM UTC

forgotaccount3 wrote: post #12

ElevenLathe wrote: post #4

Workers ultimately have a job because they are useful to management, and management have a job because they are useful to ownership. Top management has insane levels of compensation as a strategy by ownership to alight management's interests with their own, by turning them into owners. If there is going to be a management layer at all, for example the proposed "A-suite", then their compensation will balloon for exact…

> Top management has insane levels of compensation as a strategy by ownership to alight management's interests with their own, by turning them into owners. If there is going to be a management layer at all, for example the proposed "A-suite", then their compensation will balloon for exactly the same reasons. That is not correct. Owner's don't align top management's interests with the owner's interests by giving them…

Sure, if you want to spell it out. It is equity compensation, because they want the management to be owners of the same assets that they hold. Once that's settled though, the question is: how much equity? Well, it needs to be a large number. Owning $500 worth of stock doesn't make them a capitalist -- it just makes them a person with $500 worth of stock.

Re: Fire the CEO, Introducing the AxO's

#39

Post by psadauskas » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 10:23 PM UTC

drykiss wrote: post #36

More generally about companies and how they’re organized - Why do we have “benevolent dictator” CxOs and trickle-down ownership and decision making powers? But bottom-up responsibility for faults and mistakes? I feel like it’s high time to have more democratic systems at our workspaces as well. More of a co-op model of working than a pyramid. Doesn’t make sense at all, for example, that the core engineers who built t…

In a feudal government, the laws are created by the wealthy landowners with complete control over how the people should live. The peasants have little say in how things should be run, and few options to leave.

In a capitalist society, corporations are owned and operated by the wealthy, and they have complete control over the people at their jobs (and often outside it, too). The workers have little say in how things should be run, and cannot leave without fear of losing necessities like healthcare.

Democracy gives the people a say in how their government should be run. Socialism gives the workers a say in how their company should be run. We've managed to no longer be exploited by our government (but not completely), but we still have to live with being exploited by the wealthy.

Democracy is to Feudalism as Socialism is to Capitalism.

Re: Fire the CEO, Introducing the AxO's

#40

Post by RobRivera » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 10:44 PM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #35

RobRivera wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh - sometimes people get hired in bulk to show growth and then get assigned valueless work, or work not necessarily as valuable. Both statements can be true.

> sometimes people get hired in bulk to show growth Um no, this doesn't happen. Nobody is paying useless people just to "show growth".

Oh you know this for an irrefutable fact, now?