20 ms·

What do executives do, anyway?

666 points by panic 7y ago

datadawg 7y ago
This was a stimulating read and I'll be adding "High Output Management" to my reading list. I've worked in organizations where the company strategy was poorly defined and this led to confusion and misalignment at the lower levels. I remember talking to some of my coworkers, wondering whether we had an issue with our executive team. It's interesting to think that it's not the role of the exec team to set strategy, and the issue may have been with the management layer below the exec team. Then again, maybe the problem was with the culture/value of diffuse ownership set by the exec team...
- js2 7y ago
  Ben Horowitz, when he was CEO at Loudcloud/Opsware, required his managers to read H.O. Management. Here's the foreword he wrote for a recent edition: https://a16z.com/2015/11/13/high-output-management/ https://a16z.com/2015/11/13/high-output-management/
  - datadawg 7y ago
    Thanks, really enjoyed that foreword and it really pushed High Output Management up on my reading list. Plus as a bonus I finally learned the name of "The Peter Principle" (the idea that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their level of incompetence).
    - cheschire 7y ago
      The peter principle and the dunning kruger effect define the majority of leadership I see these days.
    - sixdimensional 7y ago
      The Peter Principle book is awesome too, by the way. Highly recommended!
  - icelancer 7y ago
    High Output Management is required reading at my startup. But so is Horowitz's book [0], which I think is actually better. [0]: https://smile.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp/0062273205?sa-no-redirect=1 https://smile.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp...
- ellius 7y ago
  Great book. I also recommend "The Effective Executive."
techslave 7y ago
> To paraphrase the book, the job of an executive is: to define and enforce culture and values for their whole organization, and to ratify good decisions. For larger orgs, sure. For small and quickly growing orgs, ie the majority audience here, no.
- NotHereNotThere 7y ago
  The article has a section about this ("Epilogue: small companies")
- datadawg 7y ago
  Good point, though the author does address that a bit in the epilogue: Almost none of this applies to small companies. They are so small that the founders and the CEO actually do have a chance of fully understanding problems, which means they don't yet need to delegate decisions.
- aggie 7y ago
  > For small and quickly growing orgs, ie the majority audience here Is there any data on this?
- brandmeyer 7y ago
  The transition from small to large insofar as it defines an executive's role happens pretty fast. I'd guess it should happen in as little as one quarter of a person's monkeysphere. Not many people would consider a 30-ish person organization to be "large".
  - mlyle 7y ago
    I think you can still have quite a bit of understanding on the overall status of a 30 person company. The CEO has 4-5 direct reports, of which the biggest departments have 10 reports. The CEO can have a pretty good handle on what's going on overall, and people can know their departments damn well. This stuff definitely starts coming into play at around ~100; then as a department head who's been there since the get-go, you might have 30 reports; on some topics you're an expert who should be directly involved, sometimes not...
ilaksh 7y ago
Part of this doesn't make sense. It says the executive is supposed to have a meeting a ratify the one decision. But right before that it says that the two people disagree. It seems to imply that those two people are magically going to agree to something before the meeting. Is the idea that they are forced to either compromise or cancel all of their plans? It seems like a common outcome might be for them to pretend to agree and then go back to their own section and just do what they want. I feel like there needs to be some kind of verification to ensure that different perspectives are actually being integrated rather than people just talking past each other. Also, sometimes just mashing two ideas together creates a third idea that doesn't work even though either one of the two original could work. Also, even if they come up with a viable idea, someone has to check that they are actually implementing it. I think the article might be a little bit of a simplification. Sometimes an executive needs to integrate different perspectives and choose a direction that neither party could see.
- ebiester 7y ago
  This seems to make sense to me. The executive's job, then, is one of facilitation. It's modeling how to resolve questions, and asking the appropriate questions that questions their operating assumptions. This is a part of setting and enforcing values.
- statusquoantefa 7y ago
  > It seems to imply that those two people are magically going to agree to something before the meeting it's not magic, it entails preparation, but if you are holding meetings and you don't have the principal attendees at the meetings in agreement before the group gathers, you're going to have highly unproductive meetings and you'll encourage civil wars to break out. Meetings work best when they present a solution to a problem, and get "buy in" from the attendees who each present to the group what they will be doing to advance toward the agreed upon goals. The executive or manager who is calling the meeting achieves this by visiting each participant in the upcoming meeting in advance and asking, "here's what we are going to talk about at the meeting, what are you going to say on this topic?" and revisiting with "here is what so-and-so is going to say, how does that affect your team, what do you need to do to prepare?" etc. People find it much easier to agree to group goals one-on-one and very much appreciate being given time in advance to prepare their plans and statements of purpose and not be caught off-guard. Other participants in meetings benefit from hearing the harmony of purpose at the meeting and they in turn step forward to announce how they will help. Think of it like a football huddle where plans are announced and agreed to; people aren't going into the huddle looking to argue, they're looking for agreement. And yes, I realize that many of you have not experienced meetings organized this way, and that's why I wrote it up, it was incredibly refreshing when I first got to experience a company run this way.
GoodJokes 7y ago
This just seems to reinforce the argument that executives just take credit for the work of others when it is good and don’t take credit when the work is bad. What makes these people so special that only they can ratify good decisions. This just seems like a really hedged defense of bullshit hierarchies. Workplace democracy should be the direction we go.
alexandercrohde 7y ago
But how can we quantifiably score the talent of executives?
- roenxi 7y ago
  There are many things that can't be quantified for practical reasons. Executive talent is one of them. The article says "There's even an algorithm for this. It seems too easy to be real." - I think that might be literally true; there is no reason why the highest job in the hierarchy should be the hardest. So there may not be anything there to quantify.
  - alexandercrohde 7y ago
    We like to think that, don't we. But the more I think about it, the less true it seems. We seem to be able to measure every other form of talent. I think those with power vehemently resist measurement because they know it opens them to scrutiny.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  Literally all they do is facilitate meetings so other people can do things for them. You are a better executive the more you delegate and the less you actually do. I'm not making this up, literally this is what the article talks about. If you don't do shit, you get paid more for it.
  - marcinzm 7y ago
    >Literally all they do is facilitate meetings so other people can do things for them. No, they define the process for decision making (ie: the values) and then enforce that it is followed. That includes finding those who don't follow it and either providing guidance or ultimately firing them. Of course, the people you're trying to find may be actively trying to hide. There is a difference between not making direct business decisions and doing nothing.
    - crimsonalucard 7y ago
zamfi 7y ago
I wonder to what extent this should also apply to e.g., schools or churches, or even parenting. Conflict between kids? Make them decide together on a mutually acceptable outcome. Set values, don't make decisions. Mediate. I guess the difference is you can't fire your kids.
- DannyB2 7y ago
  Sometimes there is one right answer and other wrong answers. The sun always (at present) rises in the East. Not in the West. Also: not a compromise of somewhere in between. Can the manager marshal the resources to determine a correct scientific answer for questions that are not a matter of opinion? Or even recognize when such issues are present?
- NateEag 7y ago
  Below a certain age you can make them sit in a room without toys or electronic devices until they decide to be cooperative. It's not firing, but it can be motivational. I'm intrigued both by the original idea and your thought of applying it to parenting. I've found that most good management technique turns out to be relevant to parenting.
  - bjornsing 7y ago
    Where I am we call that false imprisonment and indict people for it...
- esfandia 7y ago
  It would be interesting to do the exercise for universities. At a very high level, universities* are incentivized to enroll and produce more and more graduates, to reduce the drop-out rate, and to retain a high quality of output. How should that apply at the level of a prof in terms of pass/fail decisions for their students? * at least universities who depend on a large extent on tuition money and government incentives to match said tuition.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  Negotiating good decisions is a skill kids and maybe most people don't have and generally are not taught.
dbcurtis 7y ago
Well, I'm not going to argue much with Andy Grove. But my answer to "What do executives do?" is: Work on environmental problems. Problems can be put into three buckets: 1) Can be solved by things 100% under your control. 2) Can be solved only by influencing others to participate, 3) Things that are part of the environment and can really only be mitigated. Area 1, control, is the realm of the first line manager. The FLM has the people, the budget, the FLM's team has the know-how, so execute well and the problem is solved. Area 2, influence, is the realm of the middle manager, and also sales and marketing. You need to borrow resources from somebody else, argue for corporate re-allocation of resources, convince a sales prospect to become a customer, etc. Area 3, environment, is the realm of the executive. You have no control and no influence, unless you can find some levers and then delegate. But some things will not have obvious levers. Example: It rains. No body will stop the rain. But everyone can fix the holes in their roof. Likewise, companies have competitors and an economic environment in which they operate. Predict and make plans. When I was at Intel, one of the great things that senior Mids got to participate in was "red teaming" as competitors. Given all that Intel knew about a competitor, a team would be give a data dump and a short number of weeks to come up with a strategic plan for that competitor to Eat Intel's Lunch. Then they presented to Intel executive staff. From what I heard, it was an excellent experience all around and very valuable to the company. (Before you ask, no.... I was not ever in any danger of participating....)
- gruez 7y ago
  >Given all that Intel knew about a competitor, a team would be give a data dump and a short number of weeks to come up with a strategic plan for that competitor to Eat Intel's Lunch. Then they presented to Intel executive staff. I guess it's safe to say that they didn't predict AMD's Zen?
  - dbcurtis 7y ago
    I could not say. My time at Intel pre-dates Zen. It is safe to say that Intel is well aware of the capabilities of all their competitors, but obviously not their detailed plans. But even so, even with 100% perfect prediction there are numerous choices of how to proceed.
BrainInAJar 7y ago
> parallels with Canadian parliament, where theoretically all decisions must be ratified by the seemingly powerless Governor General, who represents The Queen This sounds to me a lot like the executive is superfluous, much like the monarchy can be discarded
- Zenbit_UX 7y ago
  He'd be a fool to intervene in the affairs of a sovereign nation, he only has this grandfathered position because he's never been fool enough to use it.
debt 7y ago
I've recently been very intrigued about executive pay. Because your average work makes like, what, 1/1000 of what an executive makes. But those 1000 workers help that executive earn very high compensation, but then I guess managing 1000 workers is 1000 times more valuable than the work those workers do. But all that sounds like an idea an executive would invent to justify earning 1000x more than what an average worker makes.
- jgeada 7y ago
  > But all that sounds like an idea an executive would invent to justify earning 1000x more than what an average worker makes. Of course, and the recent absurd ratios of executive pay vs average workers are likely unsustainable. It is all part of the same echo chamber that gave us trickle down economics. Realistically, most people in charge of money are the ones that decide how to allocate it and, without any other constraints, will allocate themselves as much of it as possible, as there is virtually no one else at the negotiating table to object. There are very few truly independent boards that would interfere in this self-dealing, as most are a self-referential loops of executive relationships.
- ArlenBales 7y ago
  Does an executive manage workers? I thought executives manage managers, and managers manage the workers?
  - mcbits 7y ago
    Workers dig holes. Managers dug holes. Executives decide if holes can be profitable. Directors know a general who needs a lot of holes dug for the empire's war effort.
- souprock 7y ago
  That isn't how it works out. Normally the executive gets far less than his workers get. Remember, there are many workers. When I divide the pay of Boeing's CEO by the number of Boeing workers, I get just $100 per year. I am confident that the typical worker earns far more than that. The CEO pay is insignificant. He could sacrifice his entire pay to give raises for the workers, and they wouldn't gain even 1%. Clearly, that CEO's work is not considered "1000 times more valuable than the work those workers do".
vincent-toups 7y ago
This doesn't seem useless, but it hardly seems worth 1000x the wage of a regular worker either.
- akozak 7y ago
  I don't disagree with 1000x, but it also strikes me that - at that level - you're more like a pro athlete than a regular salaried employee. Your career and job is on shakier ground as responsibility grows, with less direct control over what actually happens. So greater pay makes some sense to compensate for unpredictability, if you amortize the economic risk of stepping out into leadership across a lifetime. Also the predominant theory of exec comp is that because it's tied to equity, your incentives as a manager are exactly aligned with what's best for the company.
  - WilliamEdward 7y ago
    I'm confused, do you agree with them earning 1000x more or not? Frankly if there was a legislative way to tone it down so it more accurately reflects their value at the company, i'd like that. Risk, equity, company status, all play an important role but they don't play 1000x the role of any other job.
    - akozak 7y ago
      I don't know how much executives should be paid, but it does seem pretty high right now. (But it's generally equity so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
    - greggman2 7y ago
      I don't know how to feel about it. Some Japanese aquaintances have liked to point out that that the difference in salary between top execs and low-level employees is much smaller in Japan. I usually counter that IMO personal experience USA companies pay salaries 2x to 3x more than Japan so I don't really care the boss makes 1000x more given they're paying me more as well. I have no idea if that translates over the entire workforce though. As a software engineer, starting software engineers in Japan start at ~$25k a year. Same ballpark as fast food jobs.
p3rls 7y ago
The duty of the general is to ride by the ranks on horseback, show himself to those in danger, praise the brave, threaten the cowardly, encourage the lazy, fill up gaps, transpose a company if necessary, bring aid to wearied, anticipate the crisis, the hour, and the outcome. - Onasander
- WilliamEdward 7y ago
  And get paid far more than the average worker - Onasander
  - rodolphoarruda 7y ago
    I don't think the average worker would agree to do the work of his general without a change in his wage.
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    British Army private’s pay is £20k, general £120k. It’s far less than the ratio in a typical corporation.
- combatentropy 7y ago
  Seems all well and good, except: > threaten the cowardly, encourage the lazy You would reap more fruit if you encouraged the cowardly and threatened the lazy.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    is this a joke I'm not understanding - I ask just because fruit is not normally something one reaps. At any rate the construction of the phrase attempts to pair the sin with a motivator suited to that sin - threaten is suited to cowardice because one should be afraid of threats. That said - I would have gone with prod the lazy.
    - Confusion 7y ago
      I think it's just someone, possibly a non native speaker, mixing "reaping the benefits of" and "plucking the fruits of"
strikelaserclaw 7y ago
Like anything, there are good executives and bad ones. The good ones have worked in the domain for a long time, they have built a-lot of experience, and have good leadership qualities. The bad ones are professional "management" material, they seem to rely more on politicking than actually generating value. The latter make me think i could easily do their job, and it makes me resent the fact that i'm doing all the work and they are making much more money than me.
- bjornsing 7y ago
  Agree. So how do we get more of the former category and less of the latter?
m12k 7y ago
The point about strategy vs culture reminds me of an article on here yesterday about how cephalopods have neural subsystems for controlling each limb separately, and they obviously have attention and intent - but it's still impossible to say if they have 'consciousness' such as wee know it. Similarly, it can be hard to tell if companies are run by intent from a central place or it's mostly the enduring culture in the subdivisions that produce the actual results.
sgt101 7y ago
But wait! Where does my budget or authority come from? Andy Grove does not answer the question that underpins corporate life. How are resources allocated?
teddyh 7y ago
See also The Manager FAQ by Peter Seebach, 2001: http://www.seebs.net/faqs/manager.html http://www.seebs.net/faqs/manager.html
decebalus1 7y ago
This book [1], written by a renowned scholar of executivology describes exactly what an executive does. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7177278-how-to-relax-without-getting-the-axe https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7177278-how-to-relax-wit...
flippinburgers 7y ago
They make money while everyone else works. It is brilliant.
unnouinceput 7y ago
Quote: "One of the book's claims, which I found shocking at first, was that in a large organization, executives don't set strategy". Yeah, let's agree to disagree and let's take a look at history. 1 - Microsoft. Bill definitely had a strategy, one that almost cost him his sanity at the end of 90's, but nevertheless made Microsoft in only 25 years a behemoth. 2 - Apple. Steve definitely had a strategy when returned to Apple. Got all hardware licenses back and worked on iPhone until was the game-changer. 3 - Amazon. You going to tell me Jeff didn't had any strategy? Yeah right. You know who didn't had a strategy after almost 100 years of strategies of its CEO's? Kodak. Remember Kodak? Yeah, it took only 15 years of streams of CEO's to be one per year with no strategy and a board full of idiots to make that company disappear from the face of Earth.
- quickSilver78 7y ago
  His strategy was stealing and screwing people over... what a hero
  - mtrpcic 7y ago
    Nobody said he was a hero in this thread, it was stated that he had a strategy. Whether you like it, or it was ethical, is besides the point.
    - quickSilver78 7y ago
      The hero comment is beside the point. When a company literally force the government to make laws in retaliation for the shitty way a company runs their business is proof the “strategy” is unethical and illegal. Downvote me all you want the truth is still true.
  - deaddodo 7y ago
    It's sad that I don't even know which exec you're referring to, yet it's applicable for all three. At least, of those, Gates is doing good with all the wealth he accumulated.
JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
I’ve always thought the film Margin Call got it so right: John Tuld : Let me tell you something, Mr. Sullivan. Do you care to know why I'm in this chair with you all? I mean, why I earn the big bucks. Peter Sullivan : Yes. John Tuld : I'm here for one reason and one reason alone. I'm here to guess what the music might do a week, a month, a year from now. That's it. Nothing more.
cryptica 7y ago
Executives leverage their personal relationships with shareholders and other executives to enrich themselves at the expense of shareholders and taxpayers through lobbying or shady deals. That's what they really do. All the other stuff they do is just a pretext to deflect attention away from what they're really doing.
Yizahi 7y ago
There is no question that executives do important stuff in the company. I've observed on several occasions their decisions that almost failed the company and the ones that succeeded and almost decimated much more experienced and rich competitors. The questions is - should they be payed x50 to x500 of the median yearly wage of the regular and senior staff in their own company? Their work may be x50 more important (debatable but possible) but it is definitely not x50 times harder, it is not even x10 times harder, it is at most x2-x3 times harder and slightly different. Question number 2 is - should they have almost complete financial and reputational immunity for their "bad" actions and decisions? (unlike regular staff)
- mhluongo 7y ago
  Should athletes be so well paid? How about musicians? Construction work is much harder than office work, maybe 2-3x. Should office workers be paid less, or construction workers more? Whether something is "harder" has very little to do with compensation in a market-driven economy.
  - jononor 7y ago
    Majority of athletes and musicians are paid extremely little, if anything at all. It is only the top 0.1% that takes home serious money.
    - hirako2000 7y ago
      Spot on. And excutives are the 0.1% of the staff. They climbed up to the top levels of responsibility. Whether they bullshited their way through is another story. But I do see some artists who climbed their way to the top selling charts, with little artistic talent. Why people buy the bullshit from imposters, whether them be artists or executives, that is an interesting question.
      - jorvi 7y ago
        > Spot on. And excutives are the 0.1% of the staff. They climbed up to the top levels of responsibility. I think you meant top levels of decision making. Executives rarely deal with the fall-out of bad decisions. Management and normal workers get axed, executives get a golden parachute and a cushy board job at another company from one of their fellow executives. In other words, they carry zero consequences and thus zero responsibility for their actions.
Merrill 7y ago
When a company does well it is usually because the mid-level management is effective. This article doesn't say much about the hiring, training and promotion of an effective mid-level management team, which are all key tasks that must be managed well from the top. On the other hand, when a company does badly, it is usually because top level management has made a bone-headed decision, e.g. makes a big investment in a product that fails in the market, fails to respond to a major change in the market that obsoletes current products, or makes a big acquisition that is a disaster.
stupidcar 7y ago
The management methodology The article presents is interesting, but a little too neat. It fails to address some of the obvious practical problems that would come from applying it (though perhaps the book does). In particular, what happens when two reports simply cannot agree? Many business decisions are time-sensitive. They cannot be endlessly deferred until a consensus is reached. And even reasonable people, with access to the same information, can reach opposite conclusions that will never be reconciled. In these cases, somebody has to break the tie, as even a sub-optimal decision may be better than a non-decision. Also, in the matter of strategy, it's true that knowledge workers are better informed within their domain, but they are also usually blind to larger scale factors. The individual soldier knows the ideal outcome is to defeat the enemy, and is best informed as to how to overcome a particular local strong point. But it doesn't follow that he is best placed to make the tactical or strategic decision to attack or not. Nor does it follow that a war-winning strategy will spontaneously emerge.
- abakker 7y ago
  Agree. I think two things are clear to me - management benefits from decisiveness to a greater degree than accuracy. the Try/fail loop is better than the wait/see loop. The other thing that management benefits from is information asymmetry. the little details from a lot of different parts of the companies do roll up to a good manager, these in turn roll up even higher. Each group may be clamoring for different changes, but a good executive can see the pattern of needs emerge and pinpoint a root cause. It goes without saying that not all executives are good at all things. They're still people.
- HellDunkel 7y ago
  I share your point of view. The decision making process as described in the piece is such a timewaster and also very, very common in large cooperations. Mainly because management is highly cautious to make decisions at all. They tend to leave it up to „experts“ so they can shift responsibility just in case. This is also the reason why they love to hire consulting agencies and waste so much money on irrelevant powerpoint slides. The author is simply wrong. MGMT should be courageous, resposible, involved, highly informed and reflective!
- 7y ago
dhouston 7y ago
IMO this post has some good points but makes the executive sound like a passive referee, ultimately misunderstanding what High Output Management (also one of my favorite books!) is about. (Admittedly adding my own editorial here from my experience founding a startup and now running it as a ~3,000-person public company.) The basic principle of HOM is that the fundamental job of an executive is to deliver results ("output"), and that the measure of an executive is the output of their organization. Importantly, there is no one right way to deliver results -- successful CEOs can have very different styles and techniques. That said, for every effective way to deliver results there are vastly more that are ineffective. Complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty are not your friends. Time is not your friend. Everything is situationally dependent. There are many skills to develop and principles that can help but there's no formula. This also partially explains why the median CEO or exec is perceived as ineffective, often because they are. It's a hard job, otherwise everyone would do it well and there would be a surplus of good (and cheap) execs. Contrary to what the post suggests, HOM does not say not that the job of an executive is to wave some kind of magic culture or "values" wand and rubber-stamp whatever emergent strategy and behavior results from that. CEOs and executives absolutely do (and must) make important decisions of all kinds, break ties, and set general direction. Occasionally they need to give commands but more typically you work collaboratively with and (as the post correctly suggests) empower your team and avoid doing too much as an individual contributor. If you're curious about what execs do and how to be a good one, HOM is an incredible book. The Effective Executive by Drucker is another favorite. https://hbr.org/2009/05/what-only-the-ceo-can-do https://hbr.org/2009/05/what-only-the-ceo-can-do is one of my favorite articles about the responsibilities of the CEO. https://hbr.org/2018/07/the-leaders-calendar https://hbr.org/2018/07/the-leaders-calendar is a fascinating study of where CEOs spend their time and what they actually do day to day.
- paulstovell 7y ago
  Thank you. When I read the OP article I though “this isn’t the book I read”. I remember it as you described - a managers output is the output of their organisation.
- pcollins123 7y ago
  Thanks Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox!
Gpetrium 7y ago
Whenever a conversation about executives come up, many tend to jump into the "this is not fair" band wagon. Below is a different take on senior executives that may help shed light on why some things are the way they are. To become a senior executive, the individual must often pass through many trials and tribulations which entails risk taking. A portion of that comes with taking a leap into different verticals, inheriting and resolving other people's mess, taking a strategic perspective on things, etc. But you must think, "other's also have to go through that" and it is true, but for potential and new executives, it tends to happen more often and at a greater risk to the self and the organization. The risk they take also needs to account for competition, time without family/friends, emphasis in the company not in the self, etc. All of these are risks, and when compounded can increase the compensation value of an executive. If the market functioned differently it is likely that a lot less people would be interested in taking that jump, specially in today's economy, where most computer & IT occupations have a similar median pay than a top executive [1][2] (USA numbers). As they become the 0.01% of the 0.01% in their area of expertise, they are able to command better compensation for their time. By being part of that equation, you often have to jump into publicly traded companies and become a public figure (internally & externally) which is viewed as a premium in market led opportunities (artists, sports players, etc). A simpler way to visualize the demand aspect of it is to ask yourself: If you had $1m, would you prefer to put it in the hands of someone with reputation or in the hands of the average Joe passing by? Would you pay $300k to get the best doctor to treat your illness with a 5% higher odds of survival or would you be fine to do it with someone else for $50k? Of course, there are still questions regarding market distortions, cronyism and many others that should be taken into account and potentially acted upon to create what society perceives to be fair. It is just important to be mindful of the overall picture. [1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/... [2] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/top-executives.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/top-executives.htm
rhizome 7y ago
I almost asked this a few days ago: with all of the applications that deep learning AI/ML etc. have been put to, how come none of it ever touches the C-suite? This is to ask: why haven't CFOs been automated?
bigred100 7y ago
Execute misbehaving underlings
flippinburgers 7y ago
If it is a company that cannot bootstrap itself, they know people who know people (in order to raise money). Otherwise, they have actual skills related to the business (because it is bootstrapped and one has to assume that an "executive" actually has their boots on the ground). My other comment was shadow banned, I guess, for being snarky. I didn't realize that making fun of executives is a no-no.

666 points by panic 7y ago

This was a stimulating read and I'll be adding "High Output Management" to my reading list. I've worked in organizations where the company strategy was poorly defined and this led to confusion and misalignment at the lower levels. I remember talking to some of my coworkers, wondering whether we had an issue with our executive team. It's interesting to think that it's not the role of the exec team to set strategy, and the issue may have been with the management layer below the exec team. Then again, maybe the problem was with the culture/value of diffuse ownership set by the exec team...

js2 7y ago
Ben Horowitz, when he was CEO at Loudcloud/Opsware, required his managers to read H.O. Management. Here's the foreword he wrote for a recent edition: https://a16z.com/2015/11/13/high-output-management/ https://a16z.com/2015/11/13/high-output-management/
- datadawg 7y ago
  Thanks, really enjoyed that foreword and it really pushed High Output Management up on my reading list. Plus as a bonus I finally learned the name of "The Peter Principle" (the idea that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their level of incompetence).
  - cheschire 7y ago
    The peter principle and the dunning kruger effect define the majority of leadership I see these days.
  - sixdimensional 7y ago
    The Peter Principle book is awesome too, by the way. Highly recommended!
- icelancer 7y ago
  High Output Management is required reading at my startup. But so is Horowitz's book [0], which I think is actually better. [0]: https://smile.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp/0062273205?sa-no-redirect=1 https://smile.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp...
ellius 7y ago
Great book. I also recommend "The Effective Executive."

techslave 7y ago

> To paraphrase the book, the job of an executive is: to define and enforce culture and values for their whole organization, and to ratify good decisions. For larger orgs, sure. For small and quickly growing orgs, ie the majority audience here, no.

NotHereNotThere 7y ago
The article has a section about this ("Epilogue: small companies")
datadawg 7y ago
Good point, though the author does address that a bit in the epilogue: Almost none of this applies to small companies. They are so small that the founders and the CEO actually do have a chance of fully understanding problems, which means they don't yet need to delegate decisions.
aggie 7y ago
> For small and quickly growing orgs, ie the majority audience here Is there any data on this?
brandmeyer 7y ago
The transition from small to large insofar as it defines an executive's role happens pretty fast. I'd guess it should happen in as little as one quarter of a person's monkeysphere. Not many people would consider a 30-ish person organization to be "large".
- mlyle 7y ago
  I think you can still have quite a bit of understanding on the overall status of a 30 person company. The CEO has 4-5 direct reports, of which the biggest departments have 10 reports. The CEO can have a pretty good handle on what's going on overall, and people can know their departments damn well. This stuff definitely starts coming into play at around ~100; then as a department head who's been there since the get-go, you might have 30 reports; on some topics you're an expert who should be directly involved, sometimes not...

ilaksh 7y ago

Part of this doesn't make sense. It says the executive is supposed to have a meeting a ratify the one decision. But right before that it says that the two people disagree. It seems to imply that those two people are magically going to agree to something before the meeting. Is the idea that they are forced to either compromise or cancel all of their plans? It seems like a common outcome might be for them to pretend to agree and then go back to their own section and just do what they want. I feel like there needs to be some kind of verification to ensure that different perspectives are actually being integrated rather than people just talking past each other. Also, sometimes just mashing two ideas together creates a third idea that doesn't work even though either one of the two original could work. Also, even if they come up with a viable idea, someone has to check that they are actually implementing it. I think the article might be a little bit of a simplification. Sometimes an executive needs to integrate different perspectives and choose a direction that neither party could see.

ebiester 7y ago
This seems to make sense to me. The executive's job, then, is one of facilitation. It's modeling how to resolve questions, and asking the appropriate questions that questions their operating assumptions. This is a part of setting and enforcing values.
statusquoantefa 7y ago
> It seems to imply that those two people are magically going to agree to something before the meeting it's not magic, it entails preparation, but if you are holding meetings and you don't have the principal attendees at the meetings in agreement before the group gathers, you're going to have highly unproductive meetings and you'll encourage civil wars to break out. Meetings work best when they present a solution to a problem, and get "buy in" from the attendees who each present to the group what they will be doing to advance toward the agreed upon goals. The executive or manager who is calling the meeting achieves this by visiting each participant in the upcoming meeting in advance and asking, "here's what we are going to talk about at the meeting, what are you going to say on this topic?" and revisiting with "here is what so-and-so is going to say, how does that affect your team, what do you need to do to prepare?" etc. People find it much easier to agree to group goals one-on-one and very much appreciate being given time in advance to prepare their plans and statements of purpose and not be caught off-guard. Other participants in meetings benefit from hearing the harmony of purpose at the meeting and they in turn step forward to announce how they will help. Think of it like a football huddle where plans are announced and agreed to; people aren't going into the huddle looking to argue, they're looking for agreement. And yes, I realize that many of you have not experienced meetings organized this way, and that's why I wrote it up, it was incredibly refreshing when I first got to experience a company run this way.

GoodJokes 7y ago

This just seems to reinforce the argument that executives just take credit for the work of others when it is good and don’t take credit when the work is bad. What makes these people so special that only they can ratify good decisions. This just seems like a really hedged defense of bullshit hierarchies. Workplace democracy should be the direction we go.

alexandercrohde 7y ago

But how can we quantifiably score the talent of executives?

roenxi 7y ago
There are many things that can't be quantified for practical reasons. Executive talent is one of them. The article says "There's even an algorithm for this. It seems too easy to be real." - I think that might be literally true; there is no reason why the highest job in the hierarchy should be the hardest. So there may not be anything there to quantify.
- alexandercrohde 7y ago
  We like to think that, don't we. But the more I think about it, the less true it seems. We seem to be able to measure every other form of talent. I think those with power vehemently resist measurement because they know it opens them to scrutiny.
crimsonalucard 7y ago
Literally all they do is facilitate meetings so other people can do things for them. You are a better executive the more you delegate and the less you actually do. I'm not making this up, literally this is what the article talks about. If you don't do shit, you get paid more for it.
- marcinzm 7y ago
  >Literally all they do is facilitate meetings so other people can do things for them. No, they define the process for decision making (ie: the values) and then enforce that it is followed. That includes finding those who don't follow it and either providing guidance or ultimately firing them. Of course, the people you're trying to find may be actively trying to hide. There is a difference between not making direct business decisions and doing nothing.
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago

zamfi 7y ago

I wonder to what extent this should also apply to e.g., schools or churches, or even parenting. Conflict between kids? Make them decide together on a mutually acceptable outcome. Set values, don't make decisions. Mediate. I guess the difference is you can't fire your kids.

DannyB2 7y ago
Sometimes there is one right answer and other wrong answers. The sun always (at present) rises in the East. Not in the West. Also: not a compromise of somewhere in between. Can the manager marshal the resources to determine a correct scientific answer for questions that are not a matter of opinion? Or even recognize when such issues are present?
NateEag 7y ago
Below a certain age you can make them sit in a room without toys or electronic devices until they decide to be cooperative. It's not firing, but it can be motivational. I'm intrigued both by the original idea and your thought of applying it to parenting. I've found that most good management technique turns out to be relevant to parenting.
- bjornsing 7y ago
  Where I am we call that false imprisonment and indict people for it...
esfandia 7y ago
It would be interesting to do the exercise for universities. At a very high level, universities* are incentivized to enroll and produce more and more graduates, to reduce the drop-out rate, and to retain a high quality of output. How should that apply at the level of a prof in terms of pass/fail decisions for their students? * at least universities who depend on a large extent on tuition money and government incentives to match said tuition.
ncmncm 7y ago
Negotiating good decisions is a skill kids and maybe most people don't have and generally are not taught.

dbcurtis 7y ago

Well, I'm not going to argue much with Andy Grove. But my answer to "What do executives do?" is: Work on environmental problems. Problems can be put into three buckets: 1) Can be solved by things 100% under your control. 2) Can be solved only by influencing others to participate, 3) Things that are part of the environment and can really only be mitigated. Area 1, control, is the realm of the first line manager. The FLM has the people, the budget, the FLM's team has the know-how, so execute well and the problem is solved. Area 2, influence, is the realm of the middle manager, and also sales and marketing. You need to borrow resources from somebody else, argue for corporate re-allocation of resources, convince a sales prospect to become a customer, etc. Area 3, environment, is the realm of the executive. You have no control and no influence, unless you can find some levers and then delegate. But some things will not have obvious levers. Example: It rains. No body will stop the rain. But everyone can fix the holes in their roof. Likewise, companies have competitors and an economic environment in which they operate. Predict and make plans. When I was at Intel, one of the great things that senior Mids got to participate in was "red teaming" as competitors. Given all that Intel knew about a competitor, a team would be give a data dump and a short number of weeks to come up with a strategic plan for that competitor to Eat Intel's Lunch. Then they presented to Intel executive staff. From what I heard, it was an excellent experience all around and very valuable to the company. (Before you ask, no.... I was not ever in any danger of participating....)

gruez 7y ago
>Given all that Intel knew about a competitor, a team would be give a data dump and a short number of weeks to come up with a strategic plan for that competitor to Eat Intel's Lunch. Then they presented to Intel executive staff. I guess it's safe to say that they didn't predict AMD's Zen?
- dbcurtis 7y ago
  I could not say. My time at Intel pre-dates Zen. It is safe to say that Intel is well aware of the capabilities of all their competitors, but obviously not their detailed plans. But even so, even with 100% perfect prediction there are numerous choices of how to proceed.

BrainInAJar 7y ago

> parallels with Canadian parliament, where theoretically all decisions must be ratified by the seemingly powerless Governor General, who represents The Queen This sounds to me a lot like the executive is superfluous, much like the monarchy can be discarded

Zenbit_UX 7y ago
He'd be a fool to intervene in the affairs of a sovereign nation, he only has this grandfathered position because he's never been fool enough to use it.

debt 7y ago

I've recently been very intrigued about executive pay. Because your average work makes like, what, 1/1000 of what an executive makes. But those 1000 workers help that executive earn very high compensation, but then I guess managing 1000 workers is 1000 times more valuable than the work those workers do. But all that sounds like an idea an executive would invent to justify earning 1000x more than what an average worker makes.

jgeada 7y ago
> But all that sounds like an idea an executive would invent to justify earning 1000x more than what an average worker makes. Of course, and the recent absurd ratios of executive pay vs average workers are likely unsustainable. It is all part of the same echo chamber that gave us trickle down economics. Realistically, most people in charge of money are the ones that decide how to allocate it and, without any other constraints, will allocate themselves as much of it as possible, as there is virtually no one else at the negotiating table to object. There are very few truly independent boards that would interfere in this self-dealing, as most are a self-referential loops of executive relationships.
ArlenBales 7y ago
Does an executive manage workers? I thought executives manage managers, and managers manage the workers?
- mcbits 7y ago
  Workers dig holes. Managers dug holes. Executives decide if holes can be profitable. Directors know a general who needs a lot of holes dug for the empire's war effort.
souprock 7y ago
That isn't how it works out. Normally the executive gets far less than his workers get. Remember, there are many workers. When I divide the pay of Boeing's CEO by the number of Boeing workers, I get just $100 per year. I am confident that the typical worker earns far more than that. The CEO pay is insignificant. He could sacrifice his entire pay to give raises for the workers, and they wouldn't gain even 1%. Clearly, that CEO's work is not considered "1000 times more valuable than the work those workers do".

vincent-toups 7y ago

This doesn't seem useless, but it hardly seems worth 1000x the wage of a regular worker either.

akozak 7y ago
I don't disagree with 1000x, but it also strikes me that - at that level - you're more like a pro athlete than a regular salaried employee. Your career and job is on shakier ground as responsibility grows, with less direct control over what actually happens. So greater pay makes some sense to compensate for unpredictability, if you amortize the economic risk of stepping out into leadership across a lifetime. Also the predominant theory of exec comp is that because it's tied to equity, your incentives as a manager are exactly aligned with what's best for the company.
- WilliamEdward 7y ago
  I'm confused, do you agree with them earning 1000x more or not? Frankly if there was a legislative way to tone it down so it more accurately reflects their value at the company, i'd like that. Risk, equity, company status, all play an important role but they don't play 1000x the role of any other job.
  - akozak 7y ago
    I don't know how much executives should be paid, but it does seem pretty high right now. (But it's generally equity so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
  - greggman2 7y ago
    I don't know how to feel about it. Some Japanese aquaintances have liked to point out that that the difference in salary between top execs and low-level employees is much smaller in Japan. I usually counter that IMO personal experience USA companies pay salaries 2x to 3x more than Japan so I don't really care the boss makes 1000x more given they're paying me more as well. I have no idea if that translates over the entire workforce though. As a software engineer, starting software engineers in Japan start at ~$25k a year. Same ballpark as fast food jobs.

p3rls 7y ago

The duty of the general is to ride by the ranks on horseback, show himself to those in danger, praise the brave, threaten the cowardly, encourage the lazy, fill up gaps, transpose a company if necessary, bring aid to wearied, anticipate the crisis, the hour, and the outcome. - Onasander

WilliamEdward 7y ago
And get paid far more than the average worker - Onasander
- rodolphoarruda 7y ago
  I don't think the average worker would agree to do the work of his general without a change in his wage.
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  British Army private’s pay is £20k, general £120k. It’s far less than the ratio in a typical corporation.
combatentropy 7y ago
Seems all well and good, except: > threaten the cowardly, encourage the lazy You would reap more fruit if you encouraged the cowardly and threatened the lazy.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  is this a joke I'm not understanding - I ask just because fruit is not normally something one reaps. At any rate the construction of the phrase attempts to pair the sin with a motivator suited to that sin - threaten is suited to cowardice because one should be afraid of threats. That said - I would have gone with prod the lazy.
  - Confusion 7y ago
    I think it's just someone, possibly a non native speaker, mixing "reaping the benefits of" and "plucking the fruits of"

strikelaserclaw 7y ago

Like anything, there are good executives and bad ones. The good ones have worked in the domain for a long time, they have built a-lot of experience, and have good leadership qualities. The bad ones are professional "management" material, they seem to rely more on politicking than actually generating value. The latter make me think i could easily do their job, and it makes me resent the fact that i'm doing all the work and they are making much more money than me.

bjornsing 7y ago
Agree. So how do we get more of the former category and less of the latter?

m12k 7y ago

The point about strategy vs culture reminds me of an article on here yesterday about how cephalopods have neural subsystems for controlling each limb separately, and they obviously have attention and intent - but it's still impossible to say if they have 'consciousness' such as wee know it. Similarly, it can be hard to tell if companies are run by intent from a central place or it's mostly the enduring culture in the subdivisions that produce the actual results.

sgt101 7y ago

But wait! Where does my budget or authority come from? Andy Grove does not answer the question that underpins corporate life. How are resources allocated?

teddyh 7y ago

See also The Manager FAQ by Peter Seebach, 2001: http://www.seebs.net/faqs/manager.html http://www.seebs.net/faqs/manager.html

decebalus1 7y ago

This book [1], written by a renowned scholar of executivology describes exactly what an executive does. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7177278-how-to-relax-without-getting-the-axe https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7177278-how-to-relax-wit...

flippinburgers 7y ago

They make money while everyone else works. It is brilliant.

unnouinceput 7y ago

Quote: "One of the book's claims, which I found shocking at first, was that in a large organization, executives don't set strategy". Yeah, let's agree to disagree and let's take a look at history. 1 - Microsoft. Bill definitely had a strategy, one that almost cost him his sanity at the end of 90's, but nevertheless made Microsoft in only 25 years a behemoth. 2 - Apple. Steve definitely had a strategy when returned to Apple. Got all hardware licenses back and worked on iPhone until was the game-changer. 3 - Amazon. You going to tell me Jeff didn't had any strategy? Yeah right. You know who didn't had a strategy after almost 100 years of strategies of its CEO's? Kodak. Remember Kodak? Yeah, it took only 15 years of streams of CEO's to be one per year with no strategy and a board full of idiots to make that company disappear from the face of Earth.

quickSilver78 7y ago
His strategy was stealing and screwing people over... what a hero
- mtrpcic 7y ago
  Nobody said he was a hero in this thread, it was stated that he had a strategy. Whether you like it, or it was ethical, is besides the point.
  - quickSilver78 7y ago
    The hero comment is beside the point. When a company literally force the government to make laws in retaliation for the shitty way a company runs their business is proof the “strategy” is unethical and illegal. Downvote me all you want the truth is still true.
- deaddodo 7y ago
  It's sad that I don't even know which exec you're referring to, yet it's applicable for all three. At least, of those, Gates is doing good with all the wealth he accumulated.

JohnJamesRambo 7y ago

I’ve always thought the film Margin Call got it so right: John Tuld : Let me tell you something, Mr. Sullivan. Do you care to know why I'm in this chair with you all? I mean, why I earn the big bucks. Peter Sullivan : Yes. John Tuld : I'm here for one reason and one reason alone. I'm here to guess what the music might do a week, a month, a year from now. That's it. Nothing more.

cryptica 7y ago

Executives leverage their personal relationships with shareholders and other executives to enrich themselves at the expense of shareholders and taxpayers through lobbying or shady deals. That's what they really do. All the other stuff they do is just a pretext to deflect attention away from what they're really doing.

Yizahi 7y ago

There is no question that executives do important stuff in the company. I've observed on several occasions their decisions that almost failed the company and the ones that succeeded and almost decimated much more experienced and rich competitors. The questions is - should they be payed x50 to x500 of the median yearly wage of the regular and senior staff in their own company? Their work may be x50 more important (debatable but possible) but it is definitely not x50 times harder, it is not even x10 times harder, it is at most x2-x3 times harder and slightly different. Question number 2 is - should they have almost complete financial and reputational immunity for their "bad" actions and decisions? (unlike regular staff)

mhluongo 7y ago
Should athletes be so well paid? How about musicians? Construction work is much harder than office work, maybe 2-3x. Should office workers be paid less, or construction workers more? Whether something is "harder" has very little to do with compensation in a market-driven economy.
- jononor 7y ago
  Majority of athletes and musicians are paid extremely little, if anything at all. It is only the top 0.1% that takes home serious money.
  - hirako2000 7y ago
    Spot on. And excutives are the 0.1% of the staff. They climbed up to the top levels of responsibility. Whether they bullshited their way through is another story. But I do see some artists who climbed their way to the top selling charts, with little artistic talent. Why people buy the bullshit from imposters, whether them be artists or executives, that is an interesting question.
    - jorvi 7y ago
      > Spot on. And excutives are the 0.1% of the staff. They climbed up to the top levels of responsibility. I think you meant top levels of decision making. Executives rarely deal with the fall-out of bad decisions. Management and normal workers get axed, executives get a golden parachute and a cushy board job at another company from one of their fellow executives. In other words, they carry zero consequences and thus zero responsibility for their actions.

Merrill 7y ago

When a company does well it is usually because the mid-level management is effective. This article doesn't say much about the hiring, training and promotion of an effective mid-level management team, which are all key tasks that must be managed well from the top. On the other hand, when a company does badly, it is usually because top level management has made a bone-headed decision, e.g. makes a big investment in a product that fails in the market, fails to respond to a major change in the market that obsoletes current products, or makes a big acquisition that is a disaster.

stupidcar 7y ago

The management methodology The article presents is interesting, but a little too neat. It fails to address some of the obvious practical problems that would come from applying it (though perhaps the book does). In particular, what happens when two reports simply cannot agree? Many business decisions are time-sensitive. They cannot be endlessly deferred until a consensus is reached. And even reasonable people, with access to the same information, can reach opposite conclusions that will never be reconciled. In these cases, somebody has to break the tie, as even a sub-optimal decision may be better than a non-decision. Also, in the matter of strategy, it's true that knowledge workers are better informed within their domain, but they are also usually blind to larger scale factors. The individual soldier knows the ideal outcome is to defeat the enemy, and is best informed as to how to overcome a particular local strong point. But it doesn't follow that he is best placed to make the tactical or strategic decision to attack or not. Nor does it follow that a war-winning strategy will spontaneously emerge.

abakker 7y ago
Agree. I think two things are clear to me - management benefits from decisiveness to a greater degree than accuracy. the Try/fail loop is better than the wait/see loop. The other thing that management benefits from is information asymmetry. the little details from a lot of different parts of the companies do roll up to a good manager, these in turn roll up even higher. Each group may be clamoring for different changes, but a good executive can see the pattern of needs emerge and pinpoint a root cause. It goes without saying that not all executives are good at all things. They're still people.
HellDunkel 7y ago
I share your point of view. The decision making process as described in the piece is such a timewaster and also very, very common in large cooperations. Mainly because management is highly cautious to make decisions at all. They tend to leave it up to „experts“ so they can shift responsibility just in case. This is also the reason why they love to hire consulting agencies and waste so much money on irrelevant powerpoint slides. The author is simply wrong. MGMT should be courageous, resposible, involved, highly informed and reflective!
7y ago

dhouston 7y ago

IMO this post has some good points but makes the executive sound like a passive referee, ultimately misunderstanding what High Output Management (also one of my favorite books!) is about. (Admittedly adding my own editorial here from my experience founding a startup and now running it as a ~3,000-person public company.) The basic principle of HOM is that the fundamental job of an executive is to deliver results ("output"), and that the measure of an executive is the output of their organization. Importantly, there is no one right way to deliver results -- successful CEOs can have very different styles and techniques. That said, for every effective way to deliver results there are vastly more that are ineffective. Complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty are not your friends. Time is not your friend. Everything is situationally dependent. There are many skills to develop and principles that can help but there's no formula. This also partially explains why the median CEO or exec is perceived as ineffective, often because they are. It's a hard job, otherwise everyone would do it well and there would be a surplus of good (and cheap) execs. Contrary to what the post suggests, HOM does not say not that the job of an executive is to wave some kind of magic culture or "values" wand and rubber-stamp whatever emergent strategy and behavior results from that. CEOs and executives absolutely do (and must) make important decisions of all kinds, break ties, and set general direction. Occasionally they need to give commands but more typically you work collaboratively with and (as the post correctly suggests) empower your team and avoid doing too much as an individual contributor. If you're curious about what execs do and how to be a good one, HOM is an incredible book. The Effective Executive by Drucker is another favorite. https://hbr.org/2009/05/what-only-the-ceo-can-do https://hbr.org/2009/05/what-only-the-ceo-can-do is one of my favorite articles about the responsibilities of the CEO. https://hbr.org/2018/07/the-leaders-calendar https://hbr.org/2018/07/the-leaders-calendar is a fascinating study of where CEOs spend their time and what they actually do day to day.

paulstovell 7y ago
Thank you. When I read the OP article I though “this isn’t the book I read”. I remember it as you described - a managers output is the output of their organisation.
pcollins123 7y ago
Thanks Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox!

Gpetrium 7y ago

Whenever a conversation about executives come up, many tend to jump into the "this is not fair" band wagon. Below is a different take on senior executives that may help shed light on why some things are the way they are. To become a senior executive, the individual must often pass through many trials and tribulations which entails risk taking. A portion of that comes with taking a leap into different verticals, inheriting and resolving other people's mess, taking a strategic perspective on things, etc. But you must think, "other's also have to go through that" and it is true, but for potential and new executives, it tends to happen more often and at a greater risk to the self and the organization. The risk they take also needs to account for competition, time without family/friends, emphasis in the company not in the self, etc. All of these are risks, and when compounded can increase the compensation value of an executive. If the market functioned differently it is likely that a lot less people would be interested in taking that jump, specially in today's economy, where most computer & IT occupations have a similar median pay than a top executive [1][2] (USA numbers). As they become the 0.01% of the 0.01% in their area of expertise, they are able to command better compensation for their time. By being part of that equation, you often have to jump into publicly traded companies and become a public figure (internally & externally) which is viewed as a premium in market led opportunities (artists, sports players, etc). A simpler way to visualize the demand aspect of it is to ask yourself: If you had $1m, would you prefer to put it in the hands of someone with reputation or in the hands of the average Joe passing by? Would you pay $300k to get the best doctor to treat your illness with a 5% higher odds of survival or would you be fine to do it with someone else for $50k? Of course, there are still questions regarding market distortions, cronyism and many others that should be taken into account and potentially acted upon to create what society perceives to be fair. It is just important to be mindful of the overall picture. [1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/... [2] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/top-executives.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/top-executives.htm

rhizome 7y ago

I almost asked this a few days ago: with all of the applications that deep learning AI/ML etc. have been put to, how come none of it ever touches the C-suite? This is to ask: why haven't CFOs been automated?

bigred100 7y ago

Execute misbehaving underlings

flippinburgers 7y ago

If it is a company that cannot bootstrap itself, they know people who know people (in order to raise money). Otherwise, they have actual skills related to the business (because it is bootstrapped and one has to assume that an "executive" actually has their boots on the ground). My other comment was shadow banned, I guess, for being snarky. I didn't realize that making fun of executives is a no-no.