"At Pfizer, a cohort of promising executives associated with Katen resigned after McKinnell took over. He himself was pushed into retirement by the board in 200

"At Pfizer, a cohort of promising executives associated with Katen resigned after McKinnell took over. He himself was pushed into retirement by the board in 2006 because of the company’s disappointing performance. Shareholder outrage over his rich retirement package followed." sounds like the real problem here is the board valuing the perception of power over actual managerial competence. I think this problem is endemic; the thing is, business is hard. Most people give up on trying to find the best person for the job and go with the best-looking person, or the person who other people think is the best. The thing is, "the wisdom of the crowd" works fairly well if all members of the crowd make up their own mind independently. But that's not how it works; nearly everyone decides largely based on what they think other people think, which breaks the whole system. I think the rise of mutual funds, index funds, and other vehicles to invest without thinking about the companies you are buying are making this problem worse. People are giving their money to people who make money as long as they don't do anything wildly divergent from the herd.