4 ms·

You're being really pedantic. The degree of leadership and autonomy required of CEOs is orders of magnitude more than bus drivers. Lumping them together in any

You're being really pedantic. The degree of leadership and autonomy required of CEOs is orders of magnitude more than bus drivers. Lumping them together in any meaningful way other than as fellow human beings is disingenuous.

jacquesm 16y ago
Sorry, but that's nonsense. A CEO that tries to 'drive the company in to the lake' would find himself fired just as fast as a busdriver that did the same. Really, the autonomy of CEOs is vastly overestimated here and I think that it is in part people like Steve Jobs that re-enforce that myth, but typically the CEO is not the person that decides like some kind of dictator how a company is run. They do carry final responsibility but that's another story. Please make a distinction between CEO/owners and CEO/minor shareholders, the difference is huge in this respect.
- ryanwaggoner 16y ago
  I don't think anyone is trying to make the point that you seem to think they are. I was responding to the fact that in this comment here (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2112766 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2112766), you seem to be drawing some very odd parallels between bus drivers and CEOs. The reality is that most people could drive a bus. Very few could be a CEO. The skillsets and levels of responsibility are just completely different. If you genuinely think that they're comparable, I don't really know what to tell you.
  - ryanwaggoner 16y ago
    "I don't know what to tell you" came across more snarky than I intended. I just mean that we'll have to agree to disagree :)
- Natsu 16y ago
  > Sorry, but that's nonsense. A CEO that tries to 'drive the company in to the lake' would find himself fired just as fast as a busdriver that did the same. But it took them quite a while to fire Darl McBride, didn't it?
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Weird as it may seem I had the impression that his stockholders and board were actually behind him all the way.
    - Natsu 16y ago
      Oh, I agree with you. I just think that he unambiguously drove the company into a lake, though I guess it doesn't matter if the board doesn't realize that.

jacquesm 16y ago

Sorry, but that's nonsense. A CEO that tries to 'drive the company in to the lake' would find himself fired just as fast as a busdriver that did the same. Really, the autonomy of CEOs is vastly overestimated here and I think that it is in part people like Steve Jobs that re-enforce that myth, but typically the CEO is not the person that decides like some kind of dictator how a company is run. They do carry final responsibility but that's another story. Please make a distinction between CEO/owners and CEO/minor shareholders, the difference is huge in this respect.

ryanwaggoner 16y ago
I don't think anyone is trying to make the point that you seem to think they are. I was responding to the fact that in this comment here (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2112766 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2112766), you seem to be drawing some very odd parallels between bus drivers and CEOs. The reality is that most people could drive a bus. Very few could be a CEO. The skillsets and levels of responsibility are just completely different. If you genuinely think that they're comparable, I don't really know what to tell you.
- ryanwaggoner 16y ago
  "I don't know what to tell you" came across more snarky than I intended. I just mean that we'll have to agree to disagree :)
Natsu 16y ago
> Sorry, but that's nonsense. A CEO that tries to 'drive the company in to the lake' would find himself fired just as fast as a busdriver that did the same. But it took them quite a while to fire Darl McBride, didn't it?
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Weird as it may seem I had the impression that his stockholders and board were actually behind him all the way.
  - Natsu 16y ago
    Oh, I agree with you. I just think that he unambiguously drove the company into a lake, though I guess it doesn't matter if the board doesn't realize that.