4 ms·

The days of management taking responsibility for anything are over. See: not a single CEO stepping down for over hiring.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lotsofspots 4y ago
Oh, they take full responsibility, it always says so in the mails they send out. It's just that taking responsibility doesn't appear to actually result in anything happening.
- parsimo2010 4y ago
  A cyncical take might be that they are saying that they take responsibility (credit) for reducing the monthly payroll expenses. They may also have overhired in the past, but what's in the past was already paid for. The savings next month is how they justify a large paycheck.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34515267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34515267
- j33zusjuice 4y ago
  Their punishment is in bearing the shame of having been wrong. That’s the price of leadership.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    What shame is there in being wrong? Being wrong is the ideal state, paving a path to gaining an education, which is a source of pride and a benefit.
cc81 4y ago
They only take responsibility for the profit margins. Over hiring affects those but often not significant enough and can be corrected with layoffs.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  No, they only take responsibility for short-term market cap. Margins and profit don't matter. That's why they chase whatever fad hits the investor class.
duckmysick 4y ago
There's plenty of companies replacing their CEOs. Just today Toyota announced theirs.
- Octoth0rpe 4y ago
  The CEO of Toyoda is becoming the chairman of their board, that doesn't feel like a CEO being replaced as punishment for poor performance in the way that people are talking about in this thread. But even when CEOs are fully ousted over issues, the golden parachute makes it barely feel like a punishment anyway. I'm having trouble thinking of a case where a CEO actually seemed to be significantly financially impacted by such an event, though maybe FTX will provide an example shortly.
  - hgsgm 4y ago
    Are the golden parachutes bigger (as % of annual comp) than employee severance packages?
    - Octoth0rpe 4y ago
      Do you think that honestly matters in the 10s of millions of dollars range? I certainly don't. The problematic parachutes in question are beyond enough for an excessively wealthy standard of living for the rest of their natural lives, even if it's proportionally smaller. Whether or not CEO comp should be as high as it currently is is another question entirely.
noisy_boy 4y ago
I don't see why we reward scale-out/scale-in in the cloud but punish CEOs when they do the same with real people /s
- hgsgm 4y ago
  How will those poor decommissioned computers get enough bytes to feed themselves?
oxfordmale 4y ago
They are taking responsibility. They are just delegating the consequences to their staff. I suspect this will change soon. Activist investors are already surrounding companies like Salesforce and I can see CEOs being promoted sideways (board member only).
logifail 4y ago
> The days of management taking responsibility for anything are over. See: not a single CEO stepping down for over hiring The list of managers stating that "they were taking responsibility" and then immediately stepping down was always fairly short.
itsoktocry 4y ago
>See: not a single CEO stepping down for over hiring. Wait, what? You think a CEO should step down because their management over-hired a relatively small proportion of employees and had to do some layoffs?
- hgsgm 4y ago
  It's not relatively small. All the companies are experiencing similar chaos to the NYSE because people in the middle of important operational work suddenly vanished. The people laid off weren't idle like H&R Block tax preparers in May or Target clerks in January. The people laid off and the people not needed were a different set of people, at the time of the layoff.
- DrBazza 4y ago
  I'll make an extreme comparison: "Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror" If you make some idiotic financial decision near the bottom of the management tree, such as... over hiring, you'll likely lose your job or get demoted. Do it as a CEO, and get a huge bonus. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Rostand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Rostand
  - zaroth 4y ago
    But it’s absurd. Companies are not supposed to only ever hire. Some things are cyclical and you need more people for some amount of time, and then you find you need less. It’s not always predictable/seasonal like farming or holiday rush. Is it wrong for a company to respond to market effects? That there was a layoff isn’t necessarily a sign a company did anything wrong… I think how they actually do the layoff certainly can be done well or poorly.
    - DrBazza 4y ago
      It’s not hiring though. It’s overhiring. I’ve forgotten which FAANG it is. But one of them still has more employees than last year even after layoffs. It’s offensive.
wonderwonder 4y ago
This is because the CEO's core job is to raise stock price. Nothing else. They hired in covid and profits & share price spiked due to the economic state at the time. Now the economic state has changed so they fire employees and the stock goes up. By that metric, the CEO will get a bonus at the end of the year. CEO does not get a bonus for not laying people off. Employees are not humans once you get to the csuite. An employee can be a person but multiple employees are just numbers on a ledger. They just send out "I'm sorry" emails to placate the masses and to get good media, no one really cares if the lower level people are upset. You only count once you get to a certain level.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

lotsofspots 4y ago

Oh, they take full responsibility, it always says so in the mails they send out. It's just that taking responsibility doesn't appear to actually result in anything happening.

parsimo2010 4y ago
A cyncical take might be that they are saying that they take responsibility (credit) for reducing the monthly payroll expenses. They may also have overhired in the past, but what's in the past was already paid for. The savings next month is how they justify a large paycheck.
shapefrog 4y ago
Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34515267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34515267
j33zusjuice 4y ago
Their punishment is in bearing the shame of having been wrong. That’s the price of leadership.
- randomdata 4y ago
  What shame is there in being wrong? Being wrong is the ideal state, paving a path to gaining an education, which is a source of pride and a benefit.

cc81 4y ago

They only take responsibility for the profit margins. Over hiring affects those but often not significant enough and can be corrected with layoffs.

hgsgm 4y ago
No, they only take responsibility for short-term market cap. Margins and profit don't matter. That's why they chase whatever fad hits the investor class.

duckmysick 4y ago

There's plenty of companies replacing their CEOs. Just today Toyota announced theirs.

Octoth0rpe 4y ago
The CEO of Toyoda is becoming the chairman of their board, that doesn't feel like a CEO being replaced as punishment for poor performance in the way that people are talking about in this thread. But even when CEOs are fully ousted over issues, the golden parachute makes it barely feel like a punishment anyway. I'm having trouble thinking of a case where a CEO actually seemed to be significantly financially impacted by such an event, though maybe FTX will provide an example shortly.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  Are the golden parachutes bigger (as % of annual comp) than employee severance packages?
  - Octoth0rpe 4y ago
    Do you think that honestly matters in the 10s of millions of dollars range? I certainly don't. The problematic parachutes in question are beyond enough for an excessively wealthy standard of living for the rest of their natural lives, even if it's proportionally smaller. Whether or not CEO comp should be as high as it currently is is another question entirely.

noisy_boy 4y ago

I don't see why we reward scale-out/scale-in in the cloud but punish CEOs when they do the same with real people /s

hgsgm 4y ago
How will those poor decommissioned computers get enough bytes to feed themselves?

oxfordmale 4y ago

They are taking responsibility. They are just delegating the consequences to their staff. I suspect this will change soon. Activist investors are already surrounding companies like Salesforce and I can see CEOs being promoted sideways (board member only).

logifail 4y ago

> The days of management taking responsibility for anything are over. See: not a single CEO stepping down for over hiring The list of managers stating that "they were taking responsibility" and then immediately stepping down was always fairly short.

itsoktocry 4y ago

>See: not a single CEO stepping down for over hiring. Wait, what? You think a CEO should step down because their management over-hired a relatively small proportion of employees and had to do some layoffs?

hgsgm 4y ago
It's not relatively small. All the companies are experiencing similar chaos to the NYSE because people in the middle of important operational work suddenly vanished. The people laid off weren't idle like H&R Block tax preparers in May or Target clerks in January. The people laid off and the people not needed were a different set of people, at the time of the layoff.
DrBazza 4y ago
I'll make an extreme comparison: "Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror" If you make some idiotic financial decision near the bottom of the management tree, such as... over hiring, you'll likely lose your job or get demoted. Do it as a CEO, and get a huge bonus. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Rostand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Rostand
- zaroth 4y ago
  But it’s absurd. Companies are not supposed to only ever hire. Some things are cyclical and you need more people for some amount of time, and then you find you need less. It’s not always predictable/seasonal like farming or holiday rush. Is it wrong for a company to respond to market effects? That there was a layoff isn’t necessarily a sign a company did anything wrong… I think how they actually do the layoff certainly can be done well or poorly.
  - DrBazza 4y ago
    It’s not hiring though. It’s overhiring. I’ve forgotten which FAANG it is. But one of them still has more employees than last year even after layoffs. It’s offensive.

wonderwonder 4y ago

This is because the CEO's core job is to raise stock price. Nothing else. They hired in covid and profits & share price spiked due to the economic state at the time. Now the economic state has changed so they fire employees and the stock goes up. By that metric, the CEO will get a bonus at the end of the year. CEO does not get a bonus for not laying people off. Employees are not humans once you get to the csuite. An employee can be a person but multiple employees are just numbers on a ledger. They just send out "I'm sorry" emails to placate the masses and to get good media, no one really cares if the lower level people are upset. You only count once you get to a certain level.