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As someone who does have Black enslaved ancestors: Sure, we can discuss comparisons among transatlantic chattel slavery, the treatment of the helots, or the peo
by afarrell 4y ago
As someone who does have Black enslaved ancestors: Sure, we can discuss comparisons among transatlantic chattel slavery, the treatment of the helots, or the people trafficked south along the Volga.
The problem with a CEO calling themselves a slave is that it pretends that someone who has made an active choice to start a company is a victim. As this article shows, a CEO can choose to walk away from their company without fear of violence or starvation. If I meet a CEO who labels themselves enslaved, that tells me they are unwilling to recognize their responsibility for their own choices. That mindset makes them unfit to hold the power of the leadership position they aspire to.
- mise_en_place 4y agoSlave is a bit extreme, but servant leadership is what I think they were trying to get at.
- d4rkp4ttern 4y agoIndeed. The OP was able to quit relatively easily because he had not yet taken investor money. Imagine trying to quit after taking their money. That is where the element of "servitude" comes in, which admittedly sounds extreme but makes a point.
- zdragnar 4y agoYou don't need to get into serfdom or other historical forms of slavery. As I mention in a sibling comment, there's multiple types of modern slavery that get discussed with varying degrees of frequency- labor slavery, sex slavery, and wage slavery. Wage slavery obviously is nothing like the others, but in the context of applying to a CEO, and given the frequency that it comes up (especially with the recurring universal basic income discussions), I think it is a much closer analogy that jumping straight back to the time before the american civil war.
- tjs8rj 4y agoIt’s really not that deep. The acronym is just a tongue in cheek silly nothing. Being the CEO (or any kind of founder role) of an early stage can be a lot of effort and sacrifice without the “privileges” of power, influence, etc Sure, if Zuckerberg jokingly called himself “chief enslaved officer” that’d be a little tone deaf given his power and privilege, but the founder of some pre-pmf startup working 10hr days 7 days a week jokingly commenting that is just a small way to soothe the pain. Obviously they aren’t a slave in any real sense (no one in America currently is), it’s a comment on the real sacrifices and effort and stress of the job.
- d4rkp4ttern 4y agoExactly this, well articulated. We’re not talking about zucks or musks here :)
- afarrell 4y agoAnd upon hearing it, I would decrease my trust that their words were shaped to portray reality clearly. It’d be much more clear to say, “man, I’ve been carrying a heavy weight of stress and loneliness.” > no one in America currently is Sadly, this is false. If I knew more about the current state of human trafficking, I’d provide some links.