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They aren't. In almost every case I have seen, the big CEO job will be the peak of that person's career. And CEOs are not like top tier athletes. The compariso

They aren't. In almost every case I have seen, the big CEO job will be the peak of that person's career. And CEOs are not like top tier athletes. The comparison is ludicrous because most CEOs are paid like Lebron but have the skill of his teammates. The number of actually good CEOs is far smaller than the number of CEOs...as in, there is usually one proven value creator per 10,000 CEOs. Btw, my sample isn't small. I worked in equity research, I can only think of one CEO I have personally come across who was actually good. One out of thousands (I say personally, there are probably ~5 that I have come across outside of my circle). Your average CEO is not just bad, they are usually actively harmful (because they tend to view becoming CEO as an achievement, they tend to apply few standards of common sense to their decision-making, the way Boards incentivize behaviour also makes no sense). The reason why this happens is two-fold: there is a culture of "the CEO", and most Boards are full of people who were also CEOs and believe they were very special. It is possible to prove this behaviour is irrational quite easily: how many CEOs have done nothing but fail, and still get hired? Lots. It is out of this world, irrational behaviour.

filoleg 6y ago
>The comparison is ludicrous because most CEOs are paid like Lebron but have the skill of his teammates. I agree with you on this. However, do you expect the CEOs who are willing to take a comp that is x10 less to be just as good? Something tells me they won't be. Like, sure, an average software dev even at a highly paid place like Google is "decent", not "great" (like LeBron would be in this analogy). However, do you think that Google would be willing to just switch to hiring all those other "mediocre" devs from Infosys or Tata for $40-50k/yr? After all, Google's own engineers are just "good enough" on average, and that would be a massive money saver. And yet they don't do it, and neither do their competitors.
- hogFeast 6y ago
  Last I checked Tata had quite a few engineers working for them...is that accurate?
  - filoleg 6y ago
    Yeah, Tata and Infosys both have tons of people employed as software devs for pennies. They both make money by letting their clients outsource their workforce with Tata providing that workforce and billing at much higher rates than what those people earn, thus getting a really really nice profit margin. Nothing wrong with that in concept, but the way they went about it was terrible, especially considering that they were paying those devs like $40k/yr in Bay Area (which is an insanity). That was the whole premise of the big H1B visa controversy, with most applicants from more "legitimate" tech companies and outside of that being pissed off that they have to participate in the visa lottery due to most of the visa cap each year taken by Tata and Infosys employees who each get paid much less (which, in turn, makes the justification for H1B visa for them much shakier).

filoleg 6y ago

>The comparison is ludicrous because most CEOs are paid like Lebron but have the skill of his teammates. I agree with you on this. However, do you expect the CEOs who are willing to take a comp that is x10 less to be just as good? Something tells me they won't be. Like, sure, an average software dev even at a highly paid place like Google is "decent", not "great" (like LeBron would be in this analogy). However, do you think that Google would be willing to just switch to hiring all those other "mediocre" devs from Infosys or Tata for $40-50k/yr? After all, Google's own engineers are just "good enough" on average, and that would be a massive money saver. And yet they don't do it, and neither do their competitors.

hogFeast 6y ago
Last I checked Tata had quite a few engineers working for them...is that accurate?
- filoleg 6y ago
  Yeah, Tata and Infosys both have tons of people employed as software devs for pennies. They both make money by letting their clients outsource their workforce with Tata providing that workforce and billing at much higher rates than what those people earn, thus getting a really really nice profit margin. Nothing wrong with that in concept, but the way they went about it was terrible, especially considering that they were paying those devs like $40k/yr in Bay Area (which is an insanity). That was the whole premise of the big H1B visa controversy, with most applicants from more "legitimate" tech companies and outside of that being pissed off that they have to participate in the visa lottery due to most of the visa cap each year taken by Tata and Infosys employees who each get paid much less (which, in turn, makes the justification for H1B visa for them much shakier).