5 ms·

I'd be curious to see the results of (crowds of?) normal people paid to say what their responses would be in the type of situations that leaders on these pay pa

by jka 4y ago

I'd be curious to see the results of (crowds of?) normal people paid to say what their responses would be in the type of situations that leaders on these pay packages have to deal with, when given similar levels of context. No doubt that's not the entire job: there's also networking, communication and thought leadership involved. But similar approaches could apply. Liability could be a trickier one.

yowlingcat 4y ago
Of those three, "networking" and "thought leadership" are more hobbies rather than concrete responsibilities of the job. There are actual concrete responsibilities that a CEO at that level needs to accomplish, a sample of which include: - fundraising - organizational structuring - hiring - strategic planning + competitive positioning - go to market motions - R&D - investor relations There's nothing fungible about any of these responsibilities, so no matter how many ordinary people you stack together, you'll never arrive at even a fraction of what a competent executive can do. Companies have executives for the same reasons countries do. Executives rotate in and out of power subject to the ongoing favor of their stakeholders, but the hierarchical structure of retaining an executive to represent the will of those stakeholders remains in place because there's no efficient way to operate otherwise.
- jka 4y ago
  Thanks for the comprehensive response. > There's nothing fungible about any of these responsibilities, so no matter how many ordinary people you stack together, you'll never arrive at even a fraction of what a competent executive can do. I think I'd disagree with that - you state it fairly strongly, but I think that each of the items you mention is possible to delegate and distribute successfully, to varying degrees. Much of that is aided by referring to existing patterns that have succeeded elsewhere. > Executives rotate in and out of power subject to the ongoing favor of their stakeholders, but the hierarchical structure of retaining an executive to represent the will of those stakeholders remains in place because there's no efficient way to operate otherwise. That I do find harder to challenge (and I don't necessarily think it's worth challenging). Conversation and consensus can arise, but even then it's useful to have someone to canvas that and say "ok, I've heard the commentary on this topic, here is our selected outcome".
  - yowlingcat 4y ago
    > I think I'd disagree with that - you state it fairly strongly, but I think that each of the items you mention is possible to delegate and distribute successfully, to varying degrees. Much of that is aided by referring to existing patterns that have succeeded elsewhere. I think we're getting a lot closer to the meat of the issue here. I agree with you that it is possible to delegate and distribute /most/ of what I mentioned successfully to varying degrees. But that leaves the "incompressible" part of the CEO, which is fundraising/investor relations and hiring/org building. Fundraising is completely impossible to delegate (if you delegate that to someone else, you'll alienate investors) and even with hiring/org building, you have to at least do the recruiting/candidate selection of top lieutenants yourself as a CEO in order to make sure that you are putting the right team of divisional heads in place to execute. You have to be a better coach than the vast majority of coaches out there to succeed in this endeavor, and to even attract and accurately assess the kind of talent that will set up the org for success. It is very easy to mess this up. On the whole, a lot of what I'm talking about is high stakes high rewards strategic dealmaking. This isn't a common skill for most people to have. It's a blend of analytical (determining leverage points, BATNA in negotiations) and creative (figuring out how to grow the pie) that is hard to practice unless you've done it before. Most decisions you make here are irreversible. The other challenge with this kind of dealmaking is that the stakes are so high and the counterparties so formidable that if you put anyone except an equally formidable party in place to negotiate with them, you'd end up in a bloodbath that ended up unfavorably for the company and favorably for the counterparty. In my opinion, that's why we end up at the steady state of executive compensation across most of the world that we see today. It's a miserable job unless you really enjoy it because everyone will (and should) blame you when things go wrong. That is made more challenging by the fact that by the time one becomes a successful CEO, one can generally retire off earnings and/or become an investor with much better WLB and risk adjusted returns. PS: I'm also realizing another interesting petri dish where we could see parts of what you're suggesting play out are DAOs in crypto. Theoretically, if we can arrive at a DAO that works efficiently, it would serve as proof that for certain kinds of commercial organizations, the chief executive role may be able to be diminished or even eliminated. I am very curious about whether these experiments pan out (and inside my heart hope they do) although I remain skeptical.
jka 4y ago
(...and perhaps that's what Hacker News is, albeit voluntary)

by jka 4y ago

yowlingcat 4y ago

Of those three, "networking" and "thought leadership" are more hobbies rather than concrete responsibilities of the job. There are actual concrete responsibilities that a CEO at that level needs to accomplish, a sample of which include: - fundraising - organizational structuring - hiring - strategic planning + competitive positioning - go to market motions - R&D - investor relations There's nothing fungible about any of these responsibilities, so no matter how many ordinary people you stack together, you'll never arrive at even a fraction of what a competent executive can do. Companies have executives for the same reasons countries do. Executives rotate in and out of power subject to the ongoing favor of their stakeholders, but the hierarchical structure of retaining an executive to represent the will of those stakeholders remains in place because there's no efficient way to operate otherwise.

jka 4y ago
Thanks for the comprehensive response. > There's nothing fungible about any of these responsibilities, so no matter how many ordinary people you stack together, you'll never arrive at even a fraction of what a competent executive can do. I think I'd disagree with that - you state it fairly strongly, but I think that each of the items you mention is possible to delegate and distribute successfully, to varying degrees. Much of that is aided by referring to existing patterns that have succeeded elsewhere. > Executives rotate in and out of power subject to the ongoing favor of their stakeholders, but the hierarchical structure of retaining an executive to represent the will of those stakeholders remains in place because there's no efficient way to operate otherwise. That I do find harder to challenge (and I don't necessarily think it's worth challenging). Conversation and consensus can arise, but even then it's useful to have someone to canvas that and say "ok, I've heard the commentary on this topic, here is our selected outcome".
- yowlingcat 4y ago
  > I think I'd disagree with that - you state it fairly strongly, but I think that each of the items you mention is possible to delegate and distribute successfully, to varying degrees. Much of that is aided by referring to existing patterns that have succeeded elsewhere. I think we're getting a lot closer to the meat of the issue here. I agree with you that it is possible to delegate and distribute /most/ of what I mentioned successfully to varying degrees. But that leaves the "incompressible" part of the CEO, which is fundraising/investor relations and hiring/org building. Fundraising is completely impossible to delegate (if you delegate that to someone else, you'll alienate investors) and even with hiring/org building, you have to at least do the recruiting/candidate selection of top lieutenants yourself as a CEO in order to make sure that you are putting the right team of divisional heads in place to execute. You have to be a better coach than the vast majority of coaches out there to succeed in this endeavor, and to even attract and accurately assess the kind of talent that will set up the org for success. It is very easy to mess this up. On the whole, a lot of what I'm talking about is high stakes high rewards strategic dealmaking. This isn't a common skill for most people to have. It's a blend of analytical (determining leverage points, BATNA in negotiations) and creative (figuring out how to grow the pie) that is hard to practice unless you've done it before. Most decisions you make here are irreversible. The other challenge with this kind of dealmaking is that the stakes are so high and the counterparties so formidable that if you put anyone except an equally formidable party in place to negotiate with them, you'd end up in a bloodbath that ended up unfavorably for the company and favorably for the counterparty. In my opinion, that's why we end up at the steady state of executive compensation across most of the world that we see today. It's a miserable job unless you really enjoy it because everyone will (and should) blame you when things go wrong. That is made more challenging by the fact that by the time one becomes a successful CEO, one can generally retire off earnings and/or become an investor with much better WLB and risk adjusted returns. PS: I'm also realizing another interesting petri dish where we could see parts of what you're suggesting play out are DAOs in crypto. Theoretically, if we can arrive at a DAO that works efficiently, it would serve as proof that for certain kinds of commercial organizations, the chief executive role may be able to be diminished or even eliminated. I am very curious about whether these experiments pan out (and inside my heart hope they do) although I remain skeptical.

jka 4y ago

(...and perhaps that's what Hacker News is, albeit voluntary)