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Goalpost moving. The people who complain that CEO's don't show any accountability, will then complain that whatever consequences the CEO's face (or self impose)

Goalpost moving. The people who complain that CEO's don't show any accountability, will then complain that whatever consequences the CEO's face (or self impose) are insignificant. Would you like this guy to commit hara-kiri?

flandish 4y ago
Depends on the industry. With tech like this.. salary/bonus changes are fine. Or wage labor pay increases. Anything and including in all cases no stockholder dividends or buybacks. Price should tank accordingly. When it comes to industry directly related to life, like health, pharmacy, electric/fuel, housing - those kinds of choices made should result in prison.
bell-cot 4y ago
How about a few CEO's getting fired for cause by their Boards, because their "I just do whatever the cooler kids are doing" hiring/firing binges show that they really aren't competent to run a company?
- creato 4y ago
  In the case of zoom, they had an explosion in users and demand due to their product being a good solution to some of the problems imposed by the pandemic. What is your suggestion? Companies hire when they have a lot of demand, the fire when they don’t. Just like basically any other organism’s response to its situation.
  - b112 4y ago
    I wonder. Where were all these detractors, when all the hiring was happening, at record salaries, over the last 2 years? Did they heap praise on this same CEO, when he hired, provided jobs, record salaries, and more? Even now, after these layoffs, this same CEO resides over a company worth immensely more, with more employees than 2+ years ago, and at excellent salaries. So where were the praises before the layoffs? Because that's the logical inverse of the current behaviour. If not, then all these complaints are just immensely hypocritical.
    - viceroyalbean 4y ago
      That's assuming that hiring a person is the exact inverse of firing someone, which is often not the case. Firing someone has more negative effect than hiring's positive effect when e.g people move, leave previous jobs (possibly), have children, buy houses.
      - b112 4y ago
        So your assertion is that the employer is responsible for your well being? Not just in a transitory fashion, but beyond? Yet responsibility is a two way street. And it embues more than one stance. So you will work with dilligence to help the company, take pay cuts, work overtime when times are tough, work for free, struggle and strive and sacrifice, for just as (in your world) the company should maintain your employment through thick and thin, you should do the inverse, yes? And by this logic, jumping ship for greater pay is questionable too, for what of your obligations? And leaving if given a pay cut in bad times, is wrong as well? You see, the transaction you envision is framed by a transactional nature. Most feel little obligation other than the metric; I work, you pay. (This does not discount joy in work, nor happiness at a job done well. It is merely that this is the exchangeful nature I speak of) And that is the metric all employer/employee relationships are legally, primarily construed. If you move for a job, negotiate a moving allowance. Thus, you will not be harmed by that loss and cost. If you take a job, ensure severance is a clear and unencumbered thing, and so on and so forth, so you do not lose in this equation. And if you are at the start of your career, and incapable of such negotiations, due to lack of clout, then you are fortunate for that hire, and in a sense, continuing your education, as your first job teaches much, and thus should expect such things at the first. But all said, this is merely how things work. Few hearts bleed for the janitor in such situations, or a construction worker, or an employee at mcdonalds. Yet for the tech worker, replete with 10x these salaries, with perks, with jobs considered cushy by many, the blood of bleeding hearts flows freely, along with the bleating of complaint filling the air. I have little sympathy.
- yibg 4y ago
  Surely there is a more holistic measure of a CEOs performance than just a round of layoffs. Is Eric a bad CEO? If yes then he should be fired. If not then I don’t see how layoffs would justify it.
phtrivier 4y ago
Of course no ! We want him to resign. (I meant some people will, I personally don't expect anything, and don't really care - none of this is in my power in any way, shape or form.) Or at least, to give the rough date at which he will resign, so that someone more competent will run the company, avoiding the mistakes that brought it so bad that it has to lay off 15%. There are mistakes that you can recover from, and you don't fire an exec (or anyone) at the first blunder. But if you have to cut an arm to recover from your mistake, you have to be shown the door, or at least the direction of the door. Baring that, he can substantially reduce his income in the next few years, so that the company can be more generous with the laid off people. Reducing his salary is a step in this direction, but we don't know how the structure of his compensation - salary might be symbolic. Also, has he made clear to his board that the situation is so bad that shareholders will also have to chip in, and accept reduced or no return on their investment for a number of years ? Again, sharing the burden. Again, in the grand scheme of things, this is a least closer to "taking responsibility". Just, not there yet.
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  So I totally get your position, and I think many of the big tech companies that are laying off are doing it because “we made an oopsies” or as a me-too tag-along, but zoom seems unique in that their business and it’s place in society truly was transformed in the last few years. They tripled their headcount, because they needed more staff to keep up, and overshooting long-term sustainability by 15% when you grew 300% doesn’t seem so reprehensible. Disclosure: I was laid off by a big tech company and I think it was BS.
- dahfizz 4y ago
  I don't understand this position. You imply that any layoff is a fundamental and serious mistake. Zoom's revenue grew like 10X over the past two years. They had a legitimate need to hire and grow the business, and now the market has corrected and they don't need as many employees. The hiring and firing decisions are exactly what I would expect from someone optimizing solely for the well-being of the company. It sucks for the people fired, but that doesn't mean the CEO did a bad job. It means you need to be realistic about what your relationship is to your employer.
hef19898 4y ago
Course not, the polite way is sepuku! But seriously, once MS Teams rolled out video conferencing, I wondered how long Zoom will manage to stay around at all.
- to11mtm 4y ago
  Zoom still does a lot of stuff better. At least the last time I used MS teams, Zoom had a much better 'upper limit' for participants in a call. Both from a 'hard limit' standpoint as well as an 'after this number the experience degrades'. To say nothing of dealing with an outage of microsoft services and needing to get on a call to resolve...
  - b112 4y ago
    At least the last time I used MS teams, Zoom had a much better 'upper limit' for participants in a call. That's probably because M$ switched away from bsd to windows again.
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
It's also interesting to me that people who got into FAANG and got that onto their resume (which is extremely valuable) - see it as this MASSIVE disservice to have been hired by mistake. I mean, sure, it would've been better to not get laid off. Obviously! But do you really think you would've been better off working somewhere else? Almost everybody that did get laid off was better off working where they did and enjoying the boom for however long it lasted. Before someone replies - I know there's exceptions. You moved, you bought house because of your job, just got pregnant, etc. I get it. Obviously layoffs don't impact everyone equally. But I think a strong majority of people that got laid off were better off working where they did for however long it lasted.
oxfordmale 4y ago
A pay cut of sorts is sufficient accountability in my eyes. It is worth noting that most previous tech CEOs financially gained from lay-offs, assuming that these layoffs would make the company more profitable in the long run.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  It's likely he will also gain from layoffs, as most of his compensation is in stock (see somebody else's comment above).
cycomanic 4y ago
Somebody up top commented that he is getting 10M in stocks and giving up on 300k in salary. If that is the case this is a clitch in his earning. A real impact would be to reduce his stock by 20%. Like this it is simply virtue signalling. I mean supposedly CEO pay is meant to be tied to company performance, then make it so in a meaningful way.

flandish 4y ago

Depends on the industry. With tech like this.. salary/bonus changes are fine. Or wage labor pay increases. Anything and including in all cases no stockholder dividends or buybacks. Price should tank accordingly. When it comes to industry directly related to life, like health, pharmacy, electric/fuel, housing - those kinds of choices made should result in prison.

bell-cot 4y ago

How about a few CEO's getting fired for cause by their Boards, because their "I just do whatever the cooler kids are doing" hiring/firing binges show that they really aren't competent to run a company?

creato 4y ago
In the case of zoom, they had an explosion in users and demand due to their product being a good solution to some of the problems imposed by the pandemic. What is your suggestion? Companies hire when they have a lot of demand, the fire when they don’t. Just like basically any other organism’s response to its situation.
- b112 4y ago
  I wonder. Where were all these detractors, when all the hiring was happening, at record salaries, over the last 2 years? Did they heap praise on this same CEO, when he hired, provided jobs, record salaries, and more? Even now, after these layoffs, this same CEO resides over a company worth immensely more, with more employees than 2+ years ago, and at excellent salaries. So where were the praises before the layoffs? Because that's the logical inverse of the current behaviour. If not, then all these complaints are just immensely hypocritical.
  - viceroyalbean 4y ago
    That's assuming that hiring a person is the exact inverse of firing someone, which is often not the case. Firing someone has more negative effect than hiring's positive effect when e.g people move, leave previous jobs (possibly), have children, buy houses.
    - b112 4y ago
      So your assertion is that the employer is responsible for your well being? Not just in a transitory fashion, but beyond? Yet responsibility is a two way street. And it embues more than one stance. So you will work with dilligence to help the company, take pay cuts, work overtime when times are tough, work for free, struggle and strive and sacrifice, for just as (in your world) the company should maintain your employment through thick and thin, you should do the inverse, yes? And by this logic, jumping ship for greater pay is questionable too, for what of your obligations? And leaving if given a pay cut in bad times, is wrong as well? You see, the transaction you envision is framed by a transactional nature. Most feel little obligation other than the metric; I work, you pay. (This does not discount joy in work, nor happiness at a job done well. It is merely that this is the exchangeful nature I speak of) And that is the metric all employer/employee relationships are legally, primarily construed. If you move for a job, negotiate a moving allowance. Thus, you will not be harmed by that loss and cost. If you take a job, ensure severance is a clear and unencumbered thing, and so on and so forth, so you do not lose in this equation. And if you are at the start of your career, and incapable of such negotiations, due to lack of clout, then you are fortunate for that hire, and in a sense, continuing your education, as your first job teaches much, and thus should expect such things at the first. But all said, this is merely how things work. Few hearts bleed for the janitor in such situations, or a construction worker, or an employee at mcdonalds. Yet for the tech worker, replete with 10x these salaries, with perks, with jobs considered cushy by many, the blood of bleeding hearts flows freely, along with the bleating of complaint filling the air. I have little sympathy.
yibg 4y ago
Surely there is a more holistic measure of a CEOs performance than just a round of layoffs. Is Eric a bad CEO? If yes then he should be fired. If not then I don’t see how layoffs would justify it.

phtrivier 4y ago

Of course no ! We want him to resign. (I meant some people will, I personally don't expect anything, and don't really care - none of this is in my power in any way, shape or form.) Or at least, to give the rough date at which he will resign, so that someone more competent will run the company, avoiding the mistakes that brought it so bad that it has to lay off 15%. There are mistakes that you can recover from, and you don't fire an exec (or anyone) at the first blunder. But if you have to cut an arm to recover from your mistake, you have to be shown the door, or at least the direction of the door. Baring that, he can substantially reduce his income in the next few years, so that the company can be more generous with the laid off people. Reducing his salary is a step in this direction, but we don't know how the structure of his compensation - salary might be symbolic. Also, has he made clear to his board that the situation is so bad that shareholders will also have to chip in, and accept reduced or no return on their investment for a number of years ? Again, sharing the burden. Again, in the grand scheme of things, this is a least closer to "taking responsibility". Just, not there yet.

vineyardmike 4y ago
So I totally get your position, and I think many of the big tech companies that are laying off are doing it because “we made an oopsies” or as a me-too tag-along, but zoom seems unique in that their business and it’s place in society truly was transformed in the last few years. They tripled their headcount, because they needed more staff to keep up, and overshooting long-term sustainability by 15% when you grew 300% doesn’t seem so reprehensible. Disclosure: I was laid off by a big tech company and I think it was BS.
dahfizz 4y ago
I don't understand this position. You imply that any layoff is a fundamental and serious mistake. Zoom's revenue grew like 10X over the past two years. They had a legitimate need to hire and grow the business, and now the market has corrected and they don't need as many employees. The hiring and firing decisions are exactly what I would expect from someone optimizing solely for the well-being of the company. It sucks for the people fired, but that doesn't mean the CEO did a bad job. It means you need to be realistic about what your relationship is to your employer.

hef19898 4y ago

Course not, the polite way is sepuku! But seriously, once MS Teams rolled out video conferencing, I wondered how long Zoom will manage to stay around at all.

to11mtm 4y ago
Zoom still does a lot of stuff better. At least the last time I used MS teams, Zoom had a much better 'upper limit' for participants in a call. Both from a 'hard limit' standpoint as well as an 'after this number the experience degrades'. To say nothing of dealing with an outage of microsoft services and needing to get on a call to resolve...
- b112 4y ago
  At least the last time I used MS teams, Zoom had a much better 'upper limit' for participants in a call. That's probably because M$ switched away from bsd to windows again.

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago

It's also interesting to me that people who got into FAANG and got that onto their resume (which is extremely valuable) - see it as this MASSIVE disservice to have been hired by mistake. I mean, sure, it would've been better to not get laid off. Obviously! But do you really think you would've been better off working somewhere else? Almost everybody that did get laid off was better off working where they did and enjoying the boom for however long it lasted. Before someone replies - I know there's exceptions. You moved, you bought house because of your job, just got pregnant, etc. I get it. Obviously layoffs don't impact everyone equally. But I think a strong majority of people that got laid off were better off working where they did for however long it lasted.

oxfordmale 4y ago

A pay cut of sorts is sufficient accountability in my eyes. It is worth noting that most previous tech CEOs financially gained from lay-offs, assuming that these layoffs would make the company more profitable in the long run.

cycomanic 4y ago
It's likely he will also gain from layoffs, as most of his compensation is in stock (see somebody else's comment above).

cycomanic 4y ago

Somebody up top commented that he is getting 10M in stocks and giving up on 300k in salary. If that is the case this is a clitch in his earning. A real impact would be to reduce his stock by 20%. Like this it is simply virtue signalling. I mean supposedly CEO pay is meant to be tied to company performance, then make it so in a meaningful way.