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For sure. But then you need somebody with vision, that will spend extra money on research so that these kinds of bugs don't happen. Then a new "smart" CEO comes

by GoToRO 9y ago

For sure. But then you need somebody with vision, that will spend extra money on research so that these kinds of bugs don't happen. Then a new "smart" CEO comes and slashes budgets. Everybody is happy, they have the same sales but lower costs. Then, after years, the bugs are found. Now it's too late. You have to allocate money to mitigate and on top of that you have to spend more money on research and then spend a little on bug bounties. It's too late to go back now. The problem is how do you recognize a truly good CEO vs. a CEO that lowers costs and makes everybody happy.

tux1968 9y ago
Market pressure will always drive outcomes, so you have to incentivize for the outcome you desire. It's far from clear how to bias such speculative (no pun intended) future costs against immediate returns even if you could identify a truly good CEO.
- anonymfus 9y ago
  >Market pressure will always drive outcomes Not necessary! Many CPU architectures and implementations were created by academic institutions, so nationalisation of this industry should be considered a possibility.
eftychis 9y ago
Market does not. CEOs are incentivized to please the markets and thus reduce investing at some point to prepare to exercise their stock options and sell. (There is plenty of discussion on what the exercise date should be and some people are pushing beyond 4 years for that reason.) A lot of companies set a 4 year window for their CEOs. Funneling capital into research, displeases stock holders, as you show reduced earnings. Observe that markets care about steady earning growth; catching these things before they happen in general will not earn you points. That is a sad part of human psychology. Think as a metaphor that an average manager will ask how many bugs did this guy fix and not how many bugs and security issues did this guy caught or saved us from. (See freaking Equifax -- https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/efx https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/efx -- they should have been out of business [my personal opinion]. Their stock price is fine. The only mistake of the CEO as far as SEC is concerned is he used inside information and sold.)

by GoToRO 9y ago

tux1968 9y ago

Market pressure will always drive outcomes, so you have to incentivize for the outcome you desire. It's far from clear how to bias such speculative (no pun intended) future costs against immediate returns even if you could identify a truly good CEO.

anonymfus 9y ago
>Market pressure will always drive outcomes Not necessary! Many CPU architectures and implementations were created by academic institutions, so nationalisation of this industry should be considered a possibility.

eftychis 9y ago

Market does not. CEOs are incentivized to please the markets and thus reduce investing at some point to prepare to exercise their stock options and sell. (There is plenty of discussion on what the exercise date should be and some people are pushing beyond 4 years for that reason.) A lot of companies set a 4 year window for their CEOs. Funneling capital into research, displeases stock holders, as you show reduced earnings. Observe that markets care about steady earning growth; catching these things before they happen in general will not earn you points. That is a sad part of human psychology. Think as a metaphor that an average manager will ask how many bugs did this guy fix and not how many bugs and security issues did this guy caught or saved us from. (See freaking Equifax -- https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/efx https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/efx -- they should have been out of business [my personal opinion]. Their stock price is fine. The only mistake of the CEO as far as SEC is concerned is he used inside information and sold.)