5 ms·

There's only so much a single person can actually do. Is it genuinely feasible to believe that some human's impact in a company can be 1000X that of another?

para_parolu 2y ago
CEO actions can easily lead to company bankruptcy. Not so much actions of some SWE
- rowanG077 2y ago
  You don't know about knight? It went to zero from $400M in 45 minutes due to a bad deployment. Or about the power outage in 2003 due to a software bug which is estimated to have cost billions. The power a single well placed programmer has in a company is devastating. Much more devastating then a CEO. The CEO, no matter how incompetent has other intelligent people at least try to not make the company go bankrupt.
  - tester756 2y ago
    That's edge case, extreme scenario. 99% of devs at worst could drop database, but other bugs usually have marginal impact on revenue, or are caught by validation/QA (if missed by tests) >The power a single well placed programmer has in a company is devastating "Well placed" does a very heavy lifting here, because in compare to CEOs, a lot of them have very significant impact on the company.
    - rowanG077 2y ago
      And Balmer is not an edge case? I mean it's pretty rich dismissing edge cases when that's precisely the scenarios when a CEO can go boom or bust.
      - tester756 2y ago
        CEOs leading company up or down is another monday.
        rowanG077 2y ago
        Are you sure about that. In most cases it seems stuff like market factors beeing much more important. Take Nvidia for example. Without lucking out on AI or bitcoin it would not even approach the current level of valuation. It really didn't take a genius to take advantage of this. There are only really a few key moments when a CEO can truly go boom or bust. Which is similar to an IC really. For example do you think Nichia Corp would still exists today without Nakamura? The more I think about it. Key IC and market factors are way more important to a company. CEO is relatively fungible. There are unicorn CEOs. Steve Jobs and Elon Musk for example who can not be replaced however.
        tester756 2y ago
        >Without lucking out on AI or bitcoin it would not even approach the current level of valuation. Lucking out on AI? didnt they spend a lot of years working on CUDA, working with researchers to enable them to use parallel compute with CUDA, to create and define ecosystem and now the bet just paid off?
credit_guy 2y ago
Absolutely. I read about this "conundrum" that a CEO doesn't work 1000 times more than a regular employee, so why should he get paid that much, in the book "The Winner- Take-All Society" by Frank and Cook. At the time the argument sounded reasonable. But it's not. A CEO doesn't work 1000 times harder, but his work is for sure 1000 times more impactful that the work of a regular employee. Just compare Nadella with Ballmer. Ballmer was running the company into the ground, so much so that Paul Graham wrote an essay declaring the death of Microsoft [1]. One way or another Nadella found a way to turn the ship around and bring it back to be one of the top 3 companies in the US, and maybe in the world. Now, take a random sample of 1000 regular employees at Microsoft. They work hard, but if they leave tomorrow and are replaced, and sometimes even if they are not replaced, Microsoft will be just fine. If Nadella leaves tomorrow, it's not at all clear that Microsoft will be fine, because we know of times before him when it wasn't fine. [1] https://paulgraham.com/microsoft.html https://paulgraham.com/microsoft.html
- yehbuttz 2y ago
  What’s far more rational given a population of meat suits millions of which believe in sky wizards is the propaganda you were raised under worked on you Occam’s razor; simplest explanation is a lot of people are just stupid
s1artibartfast 2y ago
yep! It is trivial if you are giving instructions to 230,000 employees. One dumb idea or sentence can waste the work of 1000s of man years. Same for one good idea.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  Still, what is the worst that happens to ceo who says dump sentence, they are dropped, probably with some compensation. Why do they not have proper skin in the game? Surely that would be greater motivation if they could lose more than they earn that is end up these millions if not billions in debt to shareholders.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    How would you imagine more skin in the game? They stand to make tens of millions in options based on good company performance. They also have locked up stock that can lose millions with poor performance. The board cant whip or kill them if they underperform.
    - Ekaros 2y ago
      Having to make up the losses with their personal property and their future work. Garnish some large cut of any future earnings. Make a bad decision that looses company 100 million. Now you owe company 100 million. And that would not be dischargeable. Seems fair deal, you do well you earn a lot. You do badly well you will make up for it with your own money. Board should be able to make them pay with their body.
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        That I agree might put more skin in the game, but I don't think it would drive up performance. Imagine you offer a scaled down version for an office job. Do you think you will get better candidates and performance? Candidates would avoid it like the plague and you would be left with crazy gamblers or those with nothing to lose. You compete for talent with making good offers, not terrible ones.

para_parolu 2y ago

CEO actions can easily lead to company bankruptcy. Not so much actions of some SWE

rowanG077 2y ago
You don't know about knight? It went to zero from $400M in 45 minutes due to a bad deployment. Or about the power outage in 2003 due to a software bug which is estimated to have cost billions. The power a single well placed programmer has in a company is devastating. Much more devastating then a CEO. The CEO, no matter how incompetent has other intelligent people at least try to not make the company go bankrupt.
- tester756 2y ago
  That's edge case, extreme scenario. 99% of devs at worst could drop database, but other bugs usually have marginal impact on revenue, or are caught by validation/QA (if missed by tests) >The power a single well placed programmer has in a company is devastating "Well placed" does a very heavy lifting here, because in compare to CEOs, a lot of them have very significant impact on the company.
  - rowanG077 2y ago
    And Balmer is not an edge case? I mean it's pretty rich dismissing edge cases when that's precisely the scenarios when a CEO can go boom or bust.
    - tester756 2y ago
      CEOs leading company up or down is another monday.
      - rowanG077 2y ago
        Are you sure about that. In most cases it seems stuff like market factors beeing much more important. Take Nvidia for example. Without lucking out on AI or bitcoin it would not even approach the current level of valuation. It really didn't take a genius to take advantage of this. There are only really a few key moments when a CEO can truly go boom or bust. Which is similar to an IC really. For example do you think Nichia Corp would still exists today without Nakamura? The more I think about it. Key IC and market factors are way more important to a company. CEO is relatively fungible. There are unicorn CEOs. Steve Jobs and Elon Musk for example who can not be replaced however.
        tester756 2y ago
        >Without lucking out on AI or bitcoin it would not even approach the current level of valuation. Lucking out on AI? didnt they spend a lot of years working on CUDA, working with researchers to enable them to use parallel compute with CUDA, to create and define ecosystem and now the bet just paid off?

credit_guy 2y ago

Absolutely. I read about this "conundrum" that a CEO doesn't work 1000 times more than a regular employee, so why should he get paid that much, in the book "The Winner- Take-All Society" by Frank and Cook. At the time the argument sounded reasonable. But it's not. A CEO doesn't work 1000 times harder, but his work is for sure 1000 times more impactful that the work of a regular employee. Just compare Nadella with Ballmer. Ballmer was running the company into the ground, so much so that Paul Graham wrote an essay declaring the death of Microsoft [1]. One way or another Nadella found a way to turn the ship around and bring it back to be one of the top 3 companies in the US, and maybe in the world. Now, take a random sample of 1000 regular employees at Microsoft. They work hard, but if they leave tomorrow and are replaced, and sometimes even if they are not replaced, Microsoft will be just fine. If Nadella leaves tomorrow, it's not at all clear that Microsoft will be fine, because we know of times before him when it wasn't fine. [1] https://paulgraham.com/microsoft.html https://paulgraham.com/microsoft.html

yehbuttz 2y ago
What’s far more rational given a population of meat suits millions of which believe in sky wizards is the propaganda you were raised under worked on you Occam’s razor; simplest explanation is a lot of people are just stupid

s1artibartfast 2y ago

yep! It is trivial if you are giving instructions to 230,000 employees. One dumb idea or sentence can waste the work of 1000s of man years. Same for one good idea.

Ekaros 2y ago
Still, what is the worst that happens to ceo who says dump sentence, they are dropped, probably with some compensation. Why do they not have proper skin in the game? Surely that would be greater motivation if they could lose more than they earn that is end up these millions if not billions in debt to shareholders.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  How would you imagine more skin in the game? They stand to make tens of millions in options based on good company performance. They also have locked up stock that can lose millions with poor performance. The board cant whip or kill them if they underperform.
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    Having to make up the losses with their personal property and their future work. Garnish some large cut of any future earnings. Make a bad decision that looses company 100 million. Now you owe company 100 million. And that would not be dischargeable. Seems fair deal, you do well you earn a lot. You do badly well you will make up for it with your own money. Board should be able to make them pay with their body.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      That I agree might put more skin in the game, but I don't think it would drive up performance. Imagine you offer a scaled down version for an office job. Do you think you will get better candidates and performance? Candidates would avoid it like the plague and you would be left with crazy gamblers or those with nothing to lose. You compete for talent with making good offers, not terrible ones.