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So as a stakeholder in a non-profit, I'd want the non-profit to be as efficient with money as possible... yet I'd want a a CEO that burns through way more money

So as a stakeholder in a non-profit, I'd want the non-profit to be as efficient with money as possible... yet I'd want a a CEO that burns through way more money than he needs? Please explain.

tedunangst 15y ago
Efficient is not strictly synonymous with cheap.
- tptacek 15y ago
  It's not strictly synonymous with "expensive" either. If it correlates, it probably correlates in the direction of "cheap", if only marginally. And any way you slice it, "expensive" is synonymous with "expensive". Let's come up for air here and ask the simple question: do we believe we have better domain policy because we pay some guy at ICANN a 7-figure annual comp package? I don't believe that. Do you?
  - pavlov 15y ago
    Well, define "better domain policy"...? Due to its ARPANET origins, the Internet namespace was technically property of the United States. Obviously that situation had to change, or the other nearly 200 nations on the planet would have difficulty accepting the Internet as the true global network. The ICANN is necessarily a compromise between the interests of powerful nations. It's not reasonable to assume that it could be run completely differently from all the other global intergovernmental organizations. Most politicians don't consider Internet policy to be all that special compared to trade, foreign aid, patents and everything else that needs to be similarly balanced and negotiated. Hence, the head of the ICANN is someone who's acceptable to governments foremost.
  - tedunangst 15y ago
    I'm not really inclined to figure out what the appropriate compensation for ICANN's CEO is. My comment was not about ICANN in particular.
saucetenuto 15y ago
I'm not the grandparent poster, but I think he's saying that executives skilled enough to run the Red Cross are motivated primarily by their salaries, and so those salaries have to be competitive with what the same highly-skilled exec could make in the private sector.
- pasbesoin 15y ago
  I might argue that the situation is in part a matter of "like attracts like". I've you're going to get executive types to contribute and to encourage/force their workforces to contribute, you have to present them with an "executive" type interface. (If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck... and plays golf like a duck...) My thoughts next turn to "hypocrisy". These are supposedly charity endeavors. But much of their activity -- fundraising activity, at least -- is just more status seeking and building and fraternizing. There, for me, lies the heart of the matter. When in the minds and/or actions of the top level participants, charity work is anything but. (I'm "on the outside" looking in, and perhaps I'm too cynical. I want to believe that people have more depth than this, and some individual acquaintances who travel in those circles sure seem to. But it makes me wonder.) No wonder they are not more effective. I'm not entirely comfortable with my comment, but I'll make it for the sake of the point about "like attracts like".

So as a stakeholder in a non-profit, I'd want the non-profit to be as efficient with money as possible... yet I'd want a a CEO that burns through way more money than he needs? Please explain.

tedunangst 15y ago

Efficient is not strictly synonymous with cheap.

tptacek 15y ago
It's not strictly synonymous with "expensive" either. If it correlates, it probably correlates in the direction of "cheap", if only marginally. And any way you slice it, "expensive" is synonymous with "expensive". Let's come up for air here and ask the simple question: do we believe we have better domain policy because we pay some guy at ICANN a 7-figure annual comp package? I don't believe that. Do you?
- pavlov 15y ago
  Well, define "better domain policy"...? Due to its ARPANET origins, the Internet namespace was technically property of the United States. Obviously that situation had to change, or the other nearly 200 nations on the planet would have difficulty accepting the Internet as the true global network. The ICANN is necessarily a compromise between the interests of powerful nations. It's not reasonable to assume that it could be run completely differently from all the other global intergovernmental organizations. Most politicians don't consider Internet policy to be all that special compared to trade, foreign aid, patents and everything else that needs to be similarly balanced and negotiated. Hence, the head of the ICANN is someone who's acceptable to governments foremost.
- tedunangst 15y ago
  I'm not really inclined to figure out what the appropriate compensation for ICANN's CEO is. My comment was not about ICANN in particular.

saucetenuto 15y ago

I'm not the grandparent poster, but I think he's saying that executives skilled enough to run the Red Cross are motivated primarily by their salaries, and so those salaries have to be competitive with what the same highly-skilled exec could make in the private sector.

pasbesoin 15y ago
I might argue that the situation is in part a matter of "like attracts like". I've you're going to get executive types to contribute and to encourage/force their workforces to contribute, you have to present them with an "executive" type interface. (If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck... and plays golf like a duck...) My thoughts next turn to "hypocrisy". These are supposedly charity endeavors. But much of their activity -- fundraising activity, at least -- is just more status seeking and building and fraternizing. There, for me, lies the heart of the matter. When in the minds and/or actions of the top level participants, charity work is anything but. (I'm "on the outside" looking in, and perhaps I'm too cynical. I want to believe that people have more depth than this, and some individual acquaintances who travel in those circles sure seem to. But it makes me wonder.) No wonder they are not more effective. I'm not entirely comfortable with my comment, but I'll make it for the sake of the point about "like attracts like".