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Standard Chartered CEO walks back comment about 'lower-value human capital'
- etgpao 6mo agoCalling employees 'lower-value human capital' reveals a lot about a company's internal culture, regardless of the PR walkback. Even if AI can automate certain tasks, language like this completely destroys team morale and trust. Good leaders should view automation as a tool to empower their team, not just a weapon to cut costs.
- kakaz 6mo ago[dead]
- NDlurker 6mo agoThat bank needs a mass exodus of human capital, either from the top or bottom. Reminds me of a much smaller scale event at my job recently. A manager who was not liked lost all their staff from their small department and is now stuck with all the work until those positions are filled.
- mbesto 6mo agoYes and no. The company is a bank - it's job is to take money and make money with that. I'm not surprised executive management is publicly saying they want to make investments in assets that will help their clients and they themselves make more money.
- happytoexplain 6mo agoThat's not what the parent commented on.
- mbesto 6mo ago"Even if AI can automate certain tasks, language like this completely destroys team morale and trust. " That's what the parent commented on and that was my response.
- rambojohnson 6mo agoSaying ‘banks exist to make money’ in response to criticism of dehumanizing language is like responding to criticism of factory pollution with ‘factories make products.’ Yes. That’s the premise...
- asdff 6mo agoWhere does it stop? Slavery would be fine if only it were legal? I mean that is the logical conclusion of a lot of business efficiency thinking. Business efficiency in a lot of ways is inhuman and against the spirit of "the collective tribe," which was originally about mutual wellbeing, not the ever more efficient extraction of resources to the benefit of the chosen few, although it was perverted that way at some point by those with the relevant mutations predisposing them to sociopathy.
- mysteria 6mo agoConsidering the unethical practices done in the name of money I wouldn't be surprised that some companies would make use of slaves if it was legal to do so.
- JohnFen 6mo agoIn the US, slavery is still legal and allowable (federally -- some states don't allow it) as long as the slaves are inmates. Many companies use that labor for profit.
- fullshark 6mo agoThe CEO has a fiduciary duty to act in the best financial interests of the company and its investors. So if slavery were legal and the company weren’t using slaves the CEO would be in violation of that responsibility and would be thrown out by the board. It’s best just to view these organizations and the people who run them as immoral and sociopathic money printing machines. Expecting morality is just going to disappoint you.
- happytoexplain 6mo ago>It’s best just to view these organizations and the people who run them as immoral and sociopathic money printing machines. People say this a lot, but that is exactly what we are doing. We criticize their behavior and words. We are disgusted by them. We want things to change. We write about and speak about it. We vote (hopelessly). That is exactly how normal humans behave in regard to those they view as "immoral and sociopathic", as you say. "That's how the system works" is a fine thing to point out, but it's not some kind of evidence that people shouldn't react they way they do - that they should just accept it forever. We are already doing what you are suggesting.
- sieabahlpark 6mo ago[dead]
- Henchman21 6mo agoWhy is it that the C-suites, etc., have so much fucking zeal for hurting normal people? Why is it that these folks are champing at the bit for layoffs? Why do they refer to people as "human resources" or almost unimaginably worse "lower-value human capital"? And why, why sir, do you enjoy the taste of boot so much?
- slater 6mo agoBecause they live in a different world.
- kyboren 6mo agoI believe "dark triad" personality traits are significantly over-represented among CEOs vs. the general population. IMO it's likely that these traits are positively selected by shareholder capitalism and traditional corporate structures.
- mbesto 6mo agoI think what he said is deplorable (hence "yes and no"). However I'm speaking specifically to the premise of what the parent said around "it destroys team morale". What I'm saying is that your team's morale may not necessarily be hurt if you are a team member at a bank full of investment bankers, capital financiers, etc. if the promise to them is that many of them can make more money with AI.
- erulabs 6mo agoBecause their job, definitionally, is to increase profit. If you increase efficiency, you've done your job well. The people who hire and fire CEOs care primarily about this metric. There's no need for insults. Have you considered that "the boot" in this case is the structure of market capitalism itself and that this structure has benefited humanity immeasurably? It could be argued heartless bankers have done more to reduce human suffering than any other group of people to have ever lived. If bootlicking means "maybe its not so bad that humanity allocates resources rationally instead of based on some arbitrary sense of fairness" than show me the boot and I'll lick. At least this boot generates excess grain and beef. All that said, of course it was highly stupid to say this in a place that would be heard be people outside the capital allocation system and whose feelings would be hurt by the unfuzzy truth that banks exist to make money.
- etgpao 6mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- bdangubic 6mo ago"lower-value human capital" sounds like a compliment to me, would expect a lot worse from an average CEO
- ryandvm 6mo agoEspecially when it comes to CEOs. I have worked at companies where the CEOs literally offered nothing but the skill of being friends with other CEOs.
- SoftTalker 6mo agoCEOs are there for the board to throw under the bus when necessary.
- dijksterhuis 6mo ago“skills not required” but they will throw their weight around as if they have them.
- DerArzt 6mo agoAnd get a huge severance package that can set the average person for life.
- red-iron-pine 6mo ago"its a big club and you're not in it"
- elzbardico 6mo agoOh man. It is a bank, Most finance people think exactly like that. They just pretend most of the time they don't and we also pretend that we believe them most of the time. Maybe it is about time we stop with all those pretend pleasantries and face the reality: when mega finance CEOs talk about our glorious UBI feature, they are not planning an idilic post-work world that looks like a Jehova's witness book illustration where we all spend our days writing poetry, painting and making music, they are planning something more like Soylent Green.
- gedy 6mo ago> they are planning something more like Soylent Green Or even just Children of Men.
- cyanydeez 6mo agoI don't think it's just internal culture. It's the epstein culture. We're watching the rise of the 'permanent underclass' and debating about what color of underclass everyone wants to be.
- catigula 6mo agoCompanies don't have a duty to their employees. They should, but they don't. Use and abuse is lawful and expected.
- za3faran 6mo agoThey're saying the quiet part out loud.
- raxxorraxor 6mo agoI would be wary as a customer too because there is little doubt he sees them the same way. Although perhaps their style of customer even appreciates this. Still, a responsible CEO would resign after such a blunder because he has become a liability for business.
- stalfosknight 6mo agoThat phrase "lower-value human capital" fills me with rage.
- delichon 6mo agoIf I replace a crew of ten ditch diggers with one guy and an excavator, I have replaced lower-value human capital with higher-value mechanical capital for that task. Does the replacement enrage you in that case, or just the phrasing? Should we be using spoons instead of excavators, and abacuses instead of computers, in order to maintain a high value on human capital?
- kennywinker 6mo agoDepends, was ditch-digging a well paid job that people enjoyed? Did your business grow 10x and you offered excavator training for those 10 ditch-diggers to become machine operators?
- delichon 6mo agoDitch digging is a crap paying job that most people hate, they just need it for food and stuff. After the mechanical resource arrived, I didn't need the other nine guys and just let them go, since I didn't suddenly get 10x the business. How does that change the calculation? Should I have kept paying them until I could find them work?
- bluefirebrand 6mo agoYou don't have to keep paying them, but you probably shouldn't sneer down at them and call them "low value human capital" or whatever
- phs318u 6mo agoExactly. What most humans value highly (though not always highest) is being treated with dignity.
- madnewgrad26 6mo agoThat’s how all executives feel. Workers are beneath them, just chattel.
- josefritzishere 6mo agoI think he just proved that it's the C-suite who are lower-value human capital.
- spiderxxxx 6mo agoImagine someone telling you that their cousin who convinced someone to off themselves and may hallucinate occasionally that they should be the person dealing with your customers. You'd flat out tell them to go f themselves. But if their 'cousin' was an AI you wouldn't bat an eye.
- jeffrallen 6mo agoChrist, what an asshole.
- erulabs 6mo agoObviously a stupid thing for a leader to say about his own employees but I think getting emotionally upset about this statement is also pretty silly. Having employees represents deployed capital. Some of that "human capital" is lower value than others. Obviously AI will replace the lowest segments first. Call it heartless or accurate, you're correct either way, but these are not words that cut deep into the heart of heads of banks - its more or less their entire job to be heartless and accurate. I've worked for companies who have kind, sensitive, and inaccurate leadership. The result was everyone was out of a job, rather than just the low performers. Pick your poison.
- tintor 6mo agoHumans employees are neither resources, nor capital.
- erulabs 6mo agoThey are, and being a resource does not make something less valuable. A nuclear bomb and Jesus Christ are both resources and capital. The denotation is not demeaning.
- happytoexplain 5mo agoIt is demeaning, obviously (sorry to be blunt). Some people have jobs that involve speaking about people in a demeaning way - that doesn't make that terminology not demeaning. It just makes those jobs inherently demeaning to humans in the operations of those jobs. The human condition is inconvenient for people who benefit from speaking in this demeaning way for efficiency. It's better to accept this and adjust than to try to convince yourself and others that we can somehow stop being human (much better, considering how people react to being treated inhumanly...).
- happytoexplain 6mo ago"But it's true" is nonsensical as evidence for "it's silly to get upset about", unless one is a psychopath by the common definition.
- shem73 6mo ago“If someone calls you a resource, call them overhead”
- rglover 6mo agoHumans are humans. Not "capital." Not "resources." They're f*cking people. Business is business and you have to be mindful of costs. But good lord, is it that hard to understand that treating your employees with basic decency is positive for your company?
- rambojohnson 6mo agoDo you realize the level of sociopathy it takes to become CEO at certain companies?
- Henchman21 6mo agoWhy do we continue to allow sociopaths and psychopaths to run everything?
- rglover 6mo agoBecause there's a severe lack of education (in the school sense) on personality disorders. I was in a relative hell for nearly a decade until I learned about the Cluster B spectrum of disorders. Once I had an answer to "what the hell was that all about," everything changed.
- cybercatgurrl 6mo agoseeing it as a personality disorder is part of the problem. it is a social advantage and a form of neurodivergence. just as many autistic people lament being called defective or disordered many of these people feel it is a super power just like autism. you wouldn’t call your ER doctor disordered while they calmly repair you while you’re bleeding out and yet that is where people with these traits cluster because the job demands it
- Henchman21 6mo agoLacking empathy is a defect.
- LogicFailsMe 6mo ago[flagged]
- 0gs 6mo agoi still can't believe "labor capture" has not caught on as a resistance slogan yet.
- iugtmkbdfil834 6mo agoI am not always certain if the people who are ostensibly in charge recognize how much anger exists in the society already ( though I can only offer anecodotes ). There absolutely is zero need to antagonize them further in such a manner. Add to this other stressors, throw in midterms and you have a recipe for a disaster.
- bluefirebrand 6mo agoI'm pretty strongly convinced that the people making comments like this have become so disconnected from the average person and insulated among their like minded peers that they have no idea how they come across I'm wondering what it is going to take to get them to pay attention.
- mschuster91 6mo agoYeah, fuck that guy. There used to be a time when such statements would warrant a visit from an angry mob with pitchforks, it's time for actions to have consequences again. Simply because if this kind of pressure is not relieved, eventually there will be a repeat of the infamous plumber's brother incident.
- chanux 6mo agoWhen I read it first, I appreciated the honesty, though probably unintended. The facade of fake niceness is tiring. This personally feels much better.
- biliousvblue 5mo agoYes. Check out www.lvhc.co.uk hilarious and banging song about lower value human capital