5 ms·

A lot, but he also provides a lot more value than I do.

by influx 8y ago

Drakim 8y ago
But does he provide x200 more value than you? Think of it this way, if there was two hundred of you all working together, would he still be adding more value than you?
- artificial 8y ago
  Why not work on starting a company instead of working for people you consider unfair?
  - organsnyder 8y ago
    Many of us have families to support, and can't afford to take the risk (especially with the poor social safety nets in the United States).
    - artificial 8y ago
      Would you contribute money to other people so they can take risks? If so, maybe consider becoming a backer to a company.
- mi100hael 8y ago
  Most likely, yes. The CEO is the public face of the company. (S)He attracts both investors & customers either through direct hands-on interactions or by providing stability and confidence. Put it this way: - Would you feel comfortable investing your money with a company run by 200 engineers? - Would you feel comfortable entering into a contract or purchasing agreement with a company run by 200 engineers?
  - jimbofisher1 8y ago
    https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ Its totally not because the 1% has captured all the value created by increased productivity over the past 50 years. Definitely not.
- 013a 8y ago
  Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. A thousand times Yes. At least in a healthy company. What exactly do you think separates companies like Oracle and Microsoft? Oracle has hundreds of very talented engineers. But their position in the market is stagnating. This is hard for HN types to accept, but Engineers are not the people in software companies producing value. No individual person is producing value. Its a combination of the leadership who can lay down a plan toward something that produces value, and the line workers who can actually produce it. Both are necessary. Here's the difference: If you need to replace an engineer, go for it. Who cares. There are millions of us. We're code-monkeys. If you need to replace a CEO, you better be careful. Github couldn't even find a good CEO, so they sold out. If you're not careful, you might get a Larry Ellison or a Marissa Meyer instead of a Satya Nadella or a Tim Cook. Successfully leading companies legitimately requires personality characteristics that are present in less than 1% of the population. I would guarantee that if we dissected the brains of enough C-suite people from successful companies, we'd see some sort of genetic or brain matter similarities, probably something resembling sociopathism.
  - chaseha 8y ago
    Well said. I think the reason it's easy to feel that people at the C-Suite don't produce value is the "leadership" qualities that matter are very hard to define, and success or failure often doesn't make itself clear until months or years down the road. As a lower-level employee, sometimes you think that the company would be successful without a leader, or even is successful in spite of poor leadership - while that may sometimes be true, much of what happens at that level is hard to understand unless you've been there
  - pascalxus 8y ago
    i think we over-attribute the success's of companies based on the talent of both their CEO and their employees. Here are some examples: I've worked in the gaming industry at big company for 5 years. I've seen a ton of games fail and few succeed. I was on the most successful game team that made hundreds of millions of dollars. And, I don't believe our team was more talented than all the other teams. We simply had the right market timing with exactly the right game, inexorably leading to an enormous success. Within this company many other teams built clones, executed just as well if not better and yet, none of those games received the success as the first one with the right timing.
tacomonstrous 8y ago
How is this value being measured? There is no counterfactual.
Analemma_ 8y ago
In the 1950's, American CEO's earned about 11 times as much as the median employee at their firm. Today it's about 200x. Are you claiming that the gap in value contributed between CEOs and employees has increased by a factor of 20 in that time? Do you have any evidence for this? Absent any, I think it is much more reasonable to conclude that there's little to no justification for current CEO compensation and that they draw their current compensations mostly "because they can".
- bitL 8y ago
  You have to keep up with the increasing sophistication of lies enabling business, so perhaps? (not sure I should put /s here as I am torn if I meant it seriously or as a satire; it's kinda blurry these days)
- tome 8y ago
  Why do boards and shareholders agree to that? EDIT: So collusion amongst CEOs explains why boards agree to it. Why do shareholders?
  - organsnyder 8y ago
    Groupthink.
  - Analemma_ 8y ago
    Who is on the board? Boards are mostly made up of CEOs of other companies. Agreeing to excessive compensation is a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" situation.
  - jimbofisher1 8y ago
    Because they are also CEOs at large companies and also want bloated salaries so they approve them for their counterparts.
  - typon 8y ago
    Because the average shareholder has negligible say in the operations of the company or who makes up the board.
CamTin 8y ago
Could somebody else provide the same amount of value (as your CEO) for a much lower salary? In principle at least, employees (including CEOs) shouldn't be compensated according to the "value" they provide, but instead only paid the minimum necessary to prevent them from quitting, or at least from quitting too frequently.
typon 8y ago
The level of stockholm syndrome of the American worker is astounding and depressing

A lot, but he also provides a lot more value than I do.

by influx 8y ago

A lot, but he also provides a lot more value than I do.

But does he provide x200 more value than you? Think of it this way, if there was two hundred of you all working together, would he still be adding more value than you?

artificial 8y ago
Why not work on starting a company instead of working for people you consider unfair?
- organsnyder 8y ago
  Many of us have families to support, and can't afford to take the risk (especially with the poor social safety nets in the United States).
  - artificial 8y ago
    Would you contribute money to other people so they can take risks? If so, maybe consider becoming a backer to a company.
mi100hael 8y ago
Most likely, yes. The CEO is the public face of the company. (S)He attracts both investors & customers either through direct hands-on interactions or by providing stability and confidence. Put it this way: - Would you feel comfortable investing your money with a company run by 200 engineers? - Would you feel comfortable entering into a contract or purchasing agreement with a company run by 200 engineers?
- jimbofisher1 8y ago
  https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ Its totally not because the 1% has captured all the value created by increased productivity over the past 50 years. Definitely not.
013a 8y ago
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. A thousand times Yes. At least in a healthy company. What exactly do you think separates companies like Oracle and Microsoft? Oracle has hundreds of very talented engineers. But their position in the market is stagnating. This is hard for HN types to accept, but Engineers are not the people in software companies producing value. No individual person is producing value. Its a combination of the leadership who can lay down a plan toward something that produces value, and the line workers who can actually produce it. Both are necessary. Here's the difference: If you need to replace an engineer, go for it. Who cares. There are millions of us. We're code-monkeys. If you need to replace a CEO, you better be careful. Github couldn't even find a good CEO, so they sold out. If you're not careful, you might get a Larry Ellison or a Marissa Meyer instead of a Satya Nadella or a Tim Cook. Successfully leading companies legitimately requires personality characteristics that are present in less than 1% of the population. I would guarantee that if we dissected the brains of enough C-suite people from successful companies, we'd see some sort of genetic or brain matter similarities, probably something resembling sociopathism.
- chaseha 8y ago
  Well said. I think the reason it's easy to feel that people at the C-Suite don't produce value is the "leadership" qualities that matter are very hard to define, and success or failure often doesn't make itself clear until months or years down the road. As a lower-level employee, sometimes you think that the company would be successful without a leader, or even is successful in spite of poor leadership - while that may sometimes be true, much of what happens at that level is hard to understand unless you've been there
- pascalxus 8y ago
  i think we over-attribute the success's of companies based on the talent of both their CEO and their employees. Here are some examples: I've worked in the gaming industry at big company for 5 years. I've seen a ton of games fail and few succeed. I was on the most successful game team that made hundreds of millions of dollars. And, I don't believe our team was more talented than all the other teams. We simply had the right market timing with exactly the right game, inexorably leading to an enormous success. Within this company many other teams built clones, executed just as well if not better and yet, none of those games received the success as the first one with the right timing.

tacomonstrous 8y ago

How is this value being measured? There is no counterfactual.

Analemma_ 8y ago

In the 1950's, American CEO's earned about 11 times as much as the median employee at their firm. Today it's about 200x. Are you claiming that the gap in value contributed between CEOs and employees has increased by a factor of 20 in that time? Do you have any evidence for this? Absent any, I think it is much more reasonable to conclude that there's little to no justification for current CEO compensation and that they draw their current compensations mostly "because they can".

bitL 8y ago
You have to keep up with the increasing sophistication of lies enabling business, so perhaps? (not sure I should put /s here as I am torn if I meant it seriously or as a satire; it's kinda blurry these days)
tome 8y ago
Why do boards and shareholders agree to that? EDIT: So collusion amongst CEOs explains why boards agree to it. Why do shareholders?
- organsnyder 8y ago
  Groupthink.
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  Who is on the board? Boards are mostly made up of CEOs of other companies. Agreeing to excessive compensation is a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" situation.
- jimbofisher1 8y ago
  Because they are also CEOs at large companies and also want bloated salaries so they approve them for their counterparts.
- typon 8y ago
  Because the average shareholder has negligible say in the operations of the company or who makes up the board.

CamTin 8y ago

Could somebody else provide the same amount of value (as your CEO) for a much lower salary? In principle at least, employees (including CEOs) shouldn't be compensated according to the "value" they provide, but instead only paid the minimum necessary to prevent them from quitting, or at least from quitting too frequently.

typon 8y ago

The level of stockholm syndrome of the American worker is astounding and depressing