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It was just the other day I read a comment on HN on how CEOs should not be responsible for what occurs in the company they are leading. It should only be the f

It was just the other day I read a comment on HN on how CEOs should not be responsible for what occurs in the company they are leading. It should only be the frontline workers who should be punished never the management. I thought I was taking crazy pills when I read that and started wondering where the world was headed. Im glad atleast the CEOs are expected to give answers.

lucianbr 2y ago
Are there any consequences if the answers are problematic in any way? Seems more like theatre from where I'm standing (far, far away).
- anonylizard 2y ago
  The university presidents got 'resigned' due to failing the congress questioning. If you are working for public institutions, then it probably matters immensely. But if you answer only to shareholders, then its more theatre.
  - flanked-evergl 2y ago
    Shareholders will also care, or should also care, I know if I directly held shares in CrowdStrike I would want the CEO gone. The real problem is that the companies that hold shares on behalf of other people, like BlackRock, don't care. Reform of companies like BlackRock is sorely needed, the way they operate is detrimental to the actual owners of equity, and society at large.
    - ionwake 2y ago
      Can you please explain, I am totally confused why shareholdes like Blackrock woudl not care who the CEO is if it directly affects profits?
      - flanked-evergl 2y ago
        BlackRock's revenue is not based on the performance of the equity in their clients' portfolios, and while it may have some impact on their profit, it's not as big an impact as it has on their actual clients. Furthermore, most of the money managed by BlackRock is not managed by them through direct choice of the equity holders, so even if the equity holders were not happy with BlackRock it would be very difficult for them to move their money elsewhere. And then finally, the shares of BlackRock itself are also held on behalf of others by institutions like BlackRock, and some of it even by BlackRock itself. So they vote with the voting rights of others as to how they think they should be run. The professional managerial class generally does not care about profits, as they exceed at finding ways of enriching themselves without having to actually deliver anything. They get rich while the average Joe's pension underperforms. They love things like DEI and ESG, as that allows them to define their own parameters for success in ways which in no way benefit the people they have a fiduciary duty to or society.
        ionwake 2y ago
        I knew it was tied to DEI but I never understood exactly how they make their money, I guess only by client fees and they are too big too fail somehow? Thanks for your informative response
        flanked-evergl 2y ago
        BlackRock's revenue comes from financial services. You pay them to invest your pension, they charge you based on how many of your assets are under their management, they don't get a performance-based fee. Currently, they have 9.101 trillion USD under management. This is not their money, this is the money of their clients, but their clients pay them, and they take the voting rights associated with the shares that they manage. Technically, if your investment does well, they have more assets under managemnt, and they earn a larger fee, but in practice they can just increase their rate because the people using them aren't shopping around anyway, and there will always be more money invested through them. In reality, most people are paying BlackRock without ever knowing that they are paying them, and then in addition to paying BlackRock in money they get the benefit of your voting rights, which they can then do with as they see fit. They are power brokers who are paid by the people whose power they are brokering.
anonylizard 2y ago
The head of US secret service just got 'resigned' after being double body slammed by Republicans and Democrats in congress on live TV. Still that is getting off lightly for a catastrophic failure 10x worse than crowdstrike.
- cycomanic 2y ago
  Why was it 10 times worse? I would suspect the crowdstrike incident caused significant loss of life (emergency services in several countries were taken down, not even counting the hospitals etc.)
- khafra 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - eptcyka 2y ago
    Are you talking about Claude, a LLM?
  - jlmorton 2y ago
    Claude has absolutely no idea how many deaths occurred as a result of this outage. It's scary that people are taking these hallucinations as some sort of reasoned fact, or important opinion.
    - Sharlin 2y ago
      Yes, it's deeply worrying. And the source is Less Wrong of all places, an author with what seems like a solid track record and lots of karma. Really makes you wonder where we're heading.
    - khafra 2y ago
      Ok, do you think 1000 is way too low, or way too high? E.g., How many life-threatening emergencies do you think happen per hour across the world? How much extra time did it take to reach the average injured person over the outage period? How was the base rate of iatrogenic death affected by losing access to all electronic records for inpatients? If you come up with a fermi estimate more than two orders of magnitude lower than 1,000, I will be suspicious of your assumptions.
pjmorris 2y ago
"A loss of X dollars is always the responsibility of an executive whose financial responsibility exceeds X dollars." - Weinberg’s 'First Principle of Financial Management' and 'Second Rule of Failure Prevention’ - 'First-Order Measurement', Quality Software Management, Volume 2, Gerald Weinberg, Dorset House Publishing, 1993 It seems to me that there's a need for the Crowdstrike CEO to take responsibility, e.g. for lax testing and for not doing canary rollouts. And it seems to me that there's a place for the [airline|bank|hospital] CEOs and CIOs to consider implementing canary 'roll-ins' where new software is tried on a small scale before being installed everywhere.
- pjmorris 2y ago
  How does this analogy work: Producers and regulators (or, if you prefer, the market) play an important role in managing food safety but they are not a replacement for our immune systems. Both are necessary.
arresin 2y ago
That is definitely learned helplessness after seeing so many justice failures.

lucianbr 2y ago

Are there any consequences if the answers are problematic in any way? Seems more like theatre from where I'm standing (far, far away).

anonylizard 2y ago
The university presidents got 'resigned' due to failing the congress questioning. If you are working for public institutions, then it probably matters immensely. But if you answer only to shareholders, then its more theatre.
- flanked-evergl 2y ago
  Shareholders will also care, or should also care, I know if I directly held shares in CrowdStrike I would want the CEO gone. The real problem is that the companies that hold shares on behalf of other people, like BlackRock, don't care. Reform of companies like BlackRock is sorely needed, the way they operate is detrimental to the actual owners of equity, and society at large.
  - ionwake 2y ago
    Can you please explain, I am totally confused why shareholdes like Blackrock woudl not care who the CEO is if it directly affects profits?
    - flanked-evergl 2y ago
      BlackRock's revenue is not based on the performance of the equity in their clients' portfolios, and while it may have some impact on their profit, it's not as big an impact as it has on their actual clients. Furthermore, most of the money managed by BlackRock is not managed by them through direct choice of the equity holders, so even if the equity holders were not happy with BlackRock it would be very difficult for them to move their money elsewhere. And then finally, the shares of BlackRock itself are also held on behalf of others by institutions like BlackRock, and some of it even by BlackRock itself. So they vote with the voting rights of others as to how they think they should be run. The professional managerial class generally does not care about profits, as they exceed at finding ways of enriching themselves without having to actually deliver anything. They get rich while the average Joe's pension underperforms. They love things like DEI and ESG, as that allows them to define their own parameters for success in ways which in no way benefit the people they have a fiduciary duty to or society.
      - ionwake 2y ago
        I knew it was tied to DEI but I never understood exactly how they make their money, I guess only by client fees and they are too big too fail somehow? Thanks for your informative response
        flanked-evergl 2y ago
        BlackRock's revenue comes from financial services. You pay them to invest your pension, they charge you based on how many of your assets are under their management, they don't get a performance-based fee. Currently, they have 9.101 trillion USD under management. This is not their money, this is the money of their clients, but their clients pay them, and they take the voting rights associated with the shares that they manage. Technically, if your investment does well, they have more assets under managemnt, and they earn a larger fee, but in practice they can just increase their rate because the people using them aren't shopping around anyway, and there will always be more money invested through them. In reality, most people are paying BlackRock without ever knowing that they are paying them, and then in addition to paying BlackRock in money they get the benefit of your voting rights, which they can then do with as they see fit. They are power brokers who are paid by the people whose power they are brokering.

anonylizard 2y ago

The head of US secret service just got 'resigned' after being double body slammed by Republicans and Democrats in congress on live TV. Still that is getting off lightly for a catastrophic failure 10x worse than crowdstrike.

cycomanic 2y ago
Why was it 10 times worse? I would suspect the crowdstrike incident caused significant loss of life (emergency services in several countries were taken down, not even counting the hospitals etc.)
khafra 2y ago
[flagged]
- eptcyka 2y ago
  Are you talking about Claude, a LLM?
- jlmorton 2y ago
  Claude has absolutely no idea how many deaths occurred as a result of this outage. It's scary that people are taking these hallucinations as some sort of reasoned fact, or important opinion.
  - Sharlin 2y ago
    Yes, it's deeply worrying. And the source is Less Wrong of all places, an author with what seems like a solid track record and lots of karma. Really makes you wonder where we're heading.
  - khafra 2y ago
    Ok, do you think 1000 is way too low, or way too high? E.g., How many life-threatening emergencies do you think happen per hour across the world? How much extra time did it take to reach the average injured person over the outage period? How was the base rate of iatrogenic death affected by losing access to all electronic records for inpatients? If you come up with a fermi estimate more than two orders of magnitude lower than 1,000, I will be suspicious of your assumptions.

pjmorris 2y ago

"A loss of X dollars is always the responsibility of an executive whose financial responsibility exceeds X dollars." - Weinberg’s 'First Principle of Financial Management' and 'Second Rule of Failure Prevention’ - 'First-Order Measurement', Quality Software Management, Volume 2, Gerald Weinberg, Dorset House Publishing, 1993 It seems to me that there's a need for the Crowdstrike CEO to take responsibility, e.g. for lax testing and for not doing canary rollouts. And it seems to me that there's a place for the [airline|bank|hospital] CEOs and CIOs to consider implementing canary 'roll-ins' where new software is tried on a small scale before being installed everywhere.

pjmorris 2y ago
How does this analogy work: Producers and regulators (or, if you prefer, the market) play an important role in managing food safety but they are not a replacement for our immune systems. Both are necessary.

arresin 2y ago

That is definitely learned helplessness after seeing so many justice failures.