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Is anyone else always bothered by titles that make these celebrity CEOs sound like they did everything single-handedly on their own? Why can't we credit the tea

Is anyone else always bothered by titles that make these celebrity CEOs sound like they did everything single-handedly on their own? Why can't we credit the teams of people that did all the work instead?

Gys 7y ago
I think for some CEOs it is actually applicable. Bezos being one of them. He has build Amazon from scratch. Sure he hired lots and lots of people to help him. But hiring the right people at the right moment is not easy and very, very important. Many startups fail at exactly that point.
- travisjungroth 7y ago
  So Bezos gave other people’s money to other people, they built something, and he deserves all the credit?
  - mirthflat83 7y ago
    Yes, he deserves the majority of the credit. Why do you think CEOs exist?
    - kingkawn 7y ago
      To take credit for things they themselves didn’t do
    - travisjungroth 7y ago
      I think he deserves like 17% of the credit.
- sjg007 7y ago
  I think Bezos is great and probably the right person but I also think Amazon was inevitable. If it wasn't Bezos it would've been someone else. Maybe not in 1994 but shortly thereafter. Amazon is not invincible either. They started amazon.cn in 1998 but they are now shutting down that division/business.
- jjtheblunt 7y ago
  Did his wife fund the effort with him, but remain out of the spotlight? (I always wondered.)
beaconstudios 7y ago
the person who gets the credit is the person who is not fungible in the process. We credit the architect with the building, not the bricklayer. Amazon does not exist without Jeff Bezos having created it. The employees and the investment are the resources with which he built it. No-one actually believes Jeff Bezos is running around himself doing all the labour.
- Frost1x 7y ago
  >No-one actually believes Jeff Bezos is running around himself doing all the labour. You might be surprised just how much a figurehead is credited in contribution, regardless of how much or little they did along the process. I imagine a significant portion of the population at large would assume Bezos masterminded and pushed most the process down to about 1-2 levels of organizational hierarchy from such headlines and glances. The reality is, he put a business need in place (focus on metrics and quantification) and let C levels percolate the concepts around the organization until a strategy emerged. He may have signed off on it but likely someone below him did and ran with it. I'm not sure emergent organizational successes should be credited to whomever set a few initial conditions unless the entire process can be outlined into how those successes emerged and were shaped--but of course they are frequently credited to someone who simply got lucky or had piles of money to throw at a problem with the right people in the room. While it's sometimes good someone decided to throw piles of money at a given problem, their goal was not inherently to solve the problem. It also doesn't mean they solved the problem. Lots of people throw lots of money at very important problems and get no credit or sometimes have no success.
  - heyn05tradamu5 7y ago
    I think you underestimate the role of a leader in building an organization like Amazon. The things you handwave away - putting a business need in place, letting C levels percolate the concepts until a strategy emerged, they are all evidence of effective leadership. It's wickedly difficult to set the initial conditions for emergent organizational success. Simply discounting Bezos by saying that he threw piles of money at the problem with the right people in the room is misunderstanding what his job is. His job is to get the right people in the room - identifying the right people is very hard. The more difficult job is listening to what they say. Casting aside your own ego and confronting difficult data. Most leaders have too little courage and too much ego to be able to do this effectively. If you'd like insight into how important having the right leader can be then I'd recommend starting by reading the book Good to Great by Jim Collins or at least the chapters on leadership.
keiferski 7y ago
Eh, this is just a feature of humanity. It’s easier to grasp things when we put a face on them. Caesar didn’t literally conquer Gaul by himself, Napoleon didn’t conquer Europe by himself, Renaissance painters didn’t paint works by themselves, etc. etc. To use the metaphor in Steve Jobs, they played the role of conductor.

Gys 7y ago

I think for some CEOs it is actually applicable. Bezos being one of them. He has build Amazon from scratch. Sure he hired lots and lots of people to help him. But hiring the right people at the right moment is not easy and very, very important. Many startups fail at exactly that point.

travisjungroth 7y ago
So Bezos gave other people’s money to other people, they built something, and he deserves all the credit?
- mirthflat83 7y ago
  Yes, he deserves the majority of the credit. Why do you think CEOs exist?
  - kingkawn 7y ago
    To take credit for things they themselves didn’t do
  - travisjungroth 7y ago
    I think he deserves like 17% of the credit.
sjg007 7y ago
I think Bezos is great and probably the right person but I also think Amazon was inevitable. If it wasn't Bezos it would've been someone else. Maybe not in 1994 but shortly thereafter. Amazon is not invincible either. They started amazon.cn in 1998 but they are now shutting down that division/business.
jjtheblunt 7y ago
Did his wife fund the effort with him, but remain out of the spotlight? (I always wondered.)

beaconstudios 7y ago

the person who gets the credit is the person who is not fungible in the process. We credit the architect with the building, not the bricklayer. Amazon does not exist without Jeff Bezos having created it. The employees and the investment are the resources with which he built it. No-one actually believes Jeff Bezos is running around himself doing all the labour.

Frost1x 7y ago
>No-one actually believes Jeff Bezos is running around himself doing all the labour. You might be surprised just how much a figurehead is credited in contribution, regardless of how much or little they did along the process. I imagine a significant portion of the population at large would assume Bezos masterminded and pushed most the process down to about 1-2 levels of organizational hierarchy from such headlines and glances. The reality is, he put a business need in place (focus on metrics and quantification) and let C levels percolate the concepts around the organization until a strategy emerged. He may have signed off on it but likely someone below him did and ran with it. I'm not sure emergent organizational successes should be credited to whomever set a few initial conditions unless the entire process can be outlined into how those successes emerged and were shaped--but of course they are frequently credited to someone who simply got lucky or had piles of money to throw at a problem with the right people in the room. While it's sometimes good someone decided to throw piles of money at a given problem, their goal was not inherently to solve the problem. It also doesn't mean they solved the problem. Lots of people throw lots of money at very important problems and get no credit or sometimes have no success.
- heyn05tradamu5 7y ago
  I think you underestimate the role of a leader in building an organization like Amazon. The things you handwave away - putting a business need in place, letting C levels percolate the concepts until a strategy emerged, they are all evidence of effective leadership. It's wickedly difficult to set the initial conditions for emergent organizational success. Simply discounting Bezos by saying that he threw piles of money at the problem with the right people in the room is misunderstanding what his job is. His job is to get the right people in the room - identifying the right people is very hard. The more difficult job is listening to what they say. Casting aside your own ego and confronting difficult data. Most leaders have too little courage and too much ego to be able to do this effectively. If you'd like insight into how important having the right leader can be then I'd recommend starting by reading the book Good to Great by Jim Collins or at least the chapters on leadership.

keiferski 7y ago

Eh, this is just a feature of humanity. It’s easier to grasp things when we put a face on them. Caesar didn’t literally conquer Gaul by himself, Napoleon didn’t conquer Europe by himself, Renaissance painters didn’t paint works by themselves, etc. etc. To use the metaphor in Steve Jobs, they played the role of conductor.