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Yeah CEOs never get enough respect. Also they're paid FAR too little for having an insight a child would have... Good leadership is rare, you're right, and I

Yeah CEOs never get enough respect. Also they're paid FAR too little for having an insight a child would have... Good leadership is rare, you're right, and I don't think CEOs deserve credit for demonstrating good leadership. Good leadership should be table stakes for that position; the bare minimum. What needs to change are the astonishingly weak disincentives (and sometimes, actual incentives) aimed at bad CEOs. If you can worm your way into a CEO position of a company you didn't start yourself, and you DON'T demonstrate good leadership qualities with regularity, then a good old-fashioned CEO-blacklisting seems very appropriate, to me; you just don't get to be a CEO anymore.

nescioquid 6y ago
The temptation might be to treat the story like a rags-to-riches fairy tale, but it is instead a parable if you read it from the point of view of a leader (which admitedly would be resisting the author's narrative).
- GoodJokes 6y ago
  And what is the moral of the parable? My opinion? Hierarchies are bullshit. They are not based on merit.
GuB-42 6y ago
It is not "an insight a child would have". Good ideas mean nothing unless it leads to a marketable product. And for one smart janitor with business sense there are thousands of people who will just cost the company money. The CEO here managed to notice that among thousands, this is the janitor to listen to. As for CEO being well paid, it is simply because their decisions can make the company lose or earn a lot of money. If a $500k salary earns the company millions, it is well deserved. And when things go wrong CEOs do get kicked out. So yeah, we can say that spotting talent in a janitor and turning into a lot of money for the company is a CEO's job and the reason he is paid so well, but it doesn't mean he shouldn't be praised for a job well done. And sure some CEO don't deserve their position, golden parachutes are a thing, but I have a feeling that most CEOs have merit.
- naikrovek 6y ago
  > It is not "an insight a child would have". Are you sure? Children listen to janitors just as much as they listen to anyone else. One's job doesn't matter to a child; they know they can learn from anyone. Very few CEOs know this. Hell, very few ADULTS know this. I didn't intend "an insight a child would have" to mean that such an idea is a basic thing everyone knows, I literally meant "an inside a child would have."
  - takeiteasyy 6y ago
    You can become the world's first CEO with a boardroom full of janitors
  - squeaky-clean 6y ago
    Children will also chase a ball into a busy street, or eat candy for every meal if given the chance. Maybe there's a virtue to knowing which childlike behaviors are worth keeping.
    - naikrovek 6y ago
      Again, I am not commenting on the general skill of a child...
  - andreilys 6y ago
    The trouble is that there's a torrential flood of information coming at you as a CEO. You have to be selective with where you sample your information. Sometimes this filter is too strict (only listening to VP's), but if your filter is too loose then you will spend your days drowning in information that might not be all that useful
    - naikrovek 6y ago
      Good leadership is orthogonal to the amount of incoming information. I am not saying that all CEOs should listen to all janitors; I'm saying that all CEOs should have, at a bare minimum, good leadership skills.
throwaway9870 6y ago
It is not a single voice in a room of quietness. It is noise from a 1000 directions and you need to pick out that one signal that leads you to success.
- naikrovek 6y ago
  That has nothing to do with good leadership ability. A CEO, or any leader, has a vision, and inconsequential information is easily cast aside. Our ears can do this quite easily, when we have a conversation in a noisy conference room or whatever.
dang 6y ago
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

nescioquid 6y ago

The temptation might be to treat the story like a rags-to-riches fairy tale, but it is instead a parable if you read it from the point of view of a leader (which admitedly would be resisting the author's narrative).

GoodJokes 6y ago
And what is the moral of the parable? My opinion? Hierarchies are bullshit. They are not based on merit.

GuB-42 6y ago

It is not "an insight a child would have". Good ideas mean nothing unless it leads to a marketable product. And for one smart janitor with business sense there are thousands of people who will just cost the company money. The CEO here managed to notice that among thousands, this is the janitor to listen to. As for CEO being well paid, it is simply because their decisions can make the company lose or earn a lot of money. If a $500k salary earns the company millions, it is well deserved. And when things go wrong CEOs do get kicked out. So yeah, we can say that spotting talent in a janitor and turning into a lot of money for the company is a CEO's job and the reason he is paid so well, but it doesn't mean he shouldn't be praised for a job well done. And sure some CEO don't deserve their position, golden parachutes are a thing, but I have a feeling that most CEOs have merit.

naikrovek 6y ago
> It is not "an insight a child would have". Are you sure? Children listen to janitors just as much as they listen to anyone else. One's job doesn't matter to a child; they know they can learn from anyone. Very few CEOs know this. Hell, very few ADULTS know this. I didn't intend "an insight a child would have" to mean that such an idea is a basic thing everyone knows, I literally meant "an inside a child would have."
- takeiteasyy 6y ago
  You can become the world's first CEO with a boardroom full of janitors
- squeaky-clean 6y ago
  Children will also chase a ball into a busy street, or eat candy for every meal if given the chance. Maybe there's a virtue to knowing which childlike behaviors are worth keeping.
  - naikrovek 6y ago
    Again, I am not commenting on the general skill of a child...
- andreilys 6y ago
  The trouble is that there's a torrential flood of information coming at you as a CEO. You have to be selective with where you sample your information. Sometimes this filter is too strict (only listening to VP's), but if your filter is too loose then you will spend your days drowning in information that might not be all that useful
  - naikrovek 6y ago
    Good leadership is orthogonal to the amount of incoming information. I am not saying that all CEOs should listen to all janitors; I'm saying that all CEOs should have, at a bare minimum, good leadership skills.

throwaway9870 6y ago

It is not a single voice in a room of quietness. It is noise from a 1000 directions and you need to pick out that one signal that leads you to success.

naikrovek 6y ago
That has nothing to do with good leadership ability. A CEO, or any leader, has a vision, and inconsequential information is easily cast aside. Our ears can do this quite easily, when we have a conversation in a noisy conference room or whatever.

dang 6y ago

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html