3 ms·

No I think for the last 10-15 years, ivy types could legitimately just raise series A type money, run a company like shit, but capital was a moat and so ended u

No I think for the last 10-15 years, ivy types could legitimately just raise series A type money, run a company like shit, but capital was a moat and so ended up as CEOs. This is actually how the world works

bluGill 3mo ago
You are confusing CEO pay with CEO ability. There is plenty of examples of companies doing poorly until a new CEO comes in, and others of a company doing well until the CEO retires and a replacement comes in. Ivy types have a poor history of figuring out which is which in advance though.
- mikert89 3mo ago
  no its not like that, these people get plopped into positions of power, and alot of time theres no good way to assess their performance
  - bluGill 3mo ago
    There are plenty of good ways to assess performance of CEO. However the important ones can only be run 10-20 years from now and so they are not helpful.
    - mikert89 3mo ago
      Right it’s like venture investing c very hard to evaluate short term
    - DangitBobby 3mo ago
      Is there? I don't see many control group companies working in absence of a CEO.
- kibwen 3mo ago
  There's an equally valid hypothesis that a "good" CEO is just one that keeps their hands off the levers of power, doesn't rock the boat or fuck anything up, and quietly lets a good company perform; whereas a bad CEO is one who, due to ego and self-aggrandizement, can't help but impose themselves via meddling and prevent a good company from performing. By that measure, you might as well save yourself the executive compensation and potential for disaster by just not having a CEO at all, despite what the executive class would have you believe. The aristocracy of old also argued that their titles were earned and that society could not function without them.
  - mikert89 3mo ago
    yeah just sit there, keep a steady hand, and project confidence
    - sokoloff 3mo ago
      There are a lot of well-functioning organizations for which that’s exactly what’s needed. Leaders should be paid for outcomes not activities.
      - jmalicki 3mo ago
        Outcomes of leadership are hard to measure. If you pay by success of the company, noone is going to want to do a 5 year corporate turnaround.
  - antasvara 3mo ago
    > a "good" CEO is just one that keeps their hands off the levers of power, doesn't rock the boat or fuck anything up, and quietly lets a good company perform How can you tell if a company is good? Because trillions of dollars are spent by banks, private equity, hedge funds, and others truing to figure out if a company is "good." > By that measure, you might as well save yourself the executive compensation and potential for disaster by just not having a CEO at all Sure, but somebody is still making the decisions the CEO would have otherwise made. Maybe it's a good thing that the power isn't concentrated in one person; I'd be open to that. But you now have to trust that each department head is making good decisions. That's fine if they were already making good decisions, hit it's disastrous if they weren't.
- bdcravens 3mo ago
  I think it's the other way around. They're not talking about CEO ability, they're talking about CEO performance, which aren't the same. Money follows performance (based on outcomes, not actual talent). It's like professional sports - win a championship, get a big payday, regardless of how it happened.
  - shimman 3mo ago
    No, the only thing that matters is what you can negotiate. Since most executives + board vote on their own salaries, which ones have you ever seen negotiated to lower their salaries? It's an extreme abuse of power, especially since workers are the sole reason why a company is able to succeed or not and they don't get the same privileges as a board + executive. Not too mention most corporations + startups are setup to encourage the worse forms of human collaboration (dictatorships + centrally planned economies).
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
bko 3mo ago
Investors aren't dumb. What does Ivy gain in this trade by just raising a lot of money and running it poorly? You think he can raise a huge round and just decide to pay himself $20m a year? Capital is not a moat. There are entire industries (VC, PE, Banks, etc) that are looking to write checks. Nothing would make them happier than to give you money, under the condition that there is significant upside (more VC) or assets (PE, Banks) and you commit to doing the hard work for very little pay. This is actually how the world works.
- mikert89 3mo ago
  the world doesnt work like an efficient machine, and capital is far more of a moat than people want to admit. these "founders" are more like professional managers from the same backgrounds as the investors there is alot of beta involved, i.e. put 10M into payroll startup xyz, expect some rate of return.
  - bko 3mo ago
    Saying capital is a moat is not convincing. From the vast amount of VC money going around, nearly half a trillion expected in 2026, not including other forms of funding, it's safe to say that there is a lot of capital for people that can execute. I don't see how you can translate money to product/startup success. You think there's some magic lever you can press to get people to use your product? Selling $10 for $5 and building a market like that is rare (moviepass) but even that is incredibly difficult. Advertising is very inefficient and sales is hard. https://dealroom.co/guides/global https://dealroom.co/guides/global
- palata 3mo ago
  > Investors aren't dumb. They are not dumb, just incompetent in the domains where they invest the money. And surrounded by yes-men because they are the ones writing the checks.
- bluecheese452 3mo ago
  Assuming he doesn’t completely shit the bed he can spin any mediocre tenure into a great success and now he has experience running a company.
pj_mukh 3mo ago
"This is actually how the world works" The level to which our algorithmic feeds have made us so confidently wrong about things is so deeply problematic. Tech's original sin keeps biting us back. This rampant cynicism and nihilism borne from constant bombardment of headlines has us acting like we know the personal stories of all leadership all around the world, and it's deeply damaging to our trust in the system. Plenty of Ivy League leaders quietly working away at their job, doing the best they can with great results and no one to write about them and you'll never hear about it anywhere. This is obvious to anyone on a second thought, but the first reactionary thought is what's acted on...always.
- mikert89 3mo ago
  my comments are from living in nyc for 15 years, alot of lived experience and meeting people behind closed doors
  - quacked 3mo ago
    I was part of a company that was doing 10s of M in revenue, a few hundred employees, and had the technical prowess and IP to become a multi billion unicorn but the blue blood CEO was so clueless that he lost literally his entire technical core staff to incredible mismanagement. My favorite memory of him, and this sounds like a fake anecdote, is that on a big emergency call where he was pulling a huge amount of engineers and project managers off an account that was on fire to help with an account that was even more on fire (thus depriving the original account of labor and guaranteeing it would be in the same state in a few weeks), he spent 5 minutes talking about the chartered fishing trip he was on in Canada and then asked the audience if anyone and any plans for the weekend. Someone spoke up and said "yeah, I'll be working."
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
    - enoint 3mo ago
      Sure, but his equity award deadline had passed, thus the fishing trip. And if things go well with Everett on the trip, the new funding would mean he can ditch those risky accounts.
sumanthvepa 3mo ago
Dammit! Why am I the only 'Ivy type' that cannot raise a round?!!! .
- mikert89 3mo ago
  you messed up!
- danans 3mo ago
  It's who you know. You are just more likely to know the right people to raise money than a random non-Ivy type.
dexterdog 3mo ago
In the startup world they're only really looking to bat better than 10 pct overall to mark success, right? Do we wonder why it's all just a crap shoot?

bluGill 3mo ago

You are confusing CEO pay with CEO ability. There is plenty of examples of companies doing poorly until a new CEO comes in, and others of a company doing well until the CEO retires and a replacement comes in. Ivy types have a poor history of figuring out which is which in advance though.

mikert89 3mo ago
no its not like that, these people get plopped into positions of power, and alot of time theres no good way to assess their performance
- bluGill 3mo ago
  There are plenty of good ways to assess performance of CEO. However the important ones can only be run 10-20 years from now and so they are not helpful.
  - mikert89 3mo ago
    Right it’s like venture investing c very hard to evaluate short term
  - DangitBobby 3mo ago
    Is there? I don't see many control group companies working in absence of a CEO.
kibwen 3mo ago
There's an equally valid hypothesis that a "good" CEO is just one that keeps their hands off the levers of power, doesn't rock the boat or fuck anything up, and quietly lets a good company perform; whereas a bad CEO is one who, due to ego and self-aggrandizement, can't help but impose themselves via meddling and prevent a good company from performing. By that measure, you might as well save yourself the executive compensation and potential for disaster by just not having a CEO at all, despite what the executive class would have you believe. The aristocracy of old also argued that their titles were earned and that society could not function without them.
- mikert89 3mo ago
  yeah just sit there, keep a steady hand, and project confidence
  - sokoloff 3mo ago
    There are a lot of well-functioning organizations for which that’s exactly what’s needed. Leaders should be paid for outcomes not activities.
    - jmalicki 3mo ago
      Outcomes of leadership are hard to measure. If you pay by success of the company, noone is going to want to do a 5 year corporate turnaround.
- antasvara 3mo ago
  > a "good" CEO is just one that keeps their hands off the levers of power, doesn't rock the boat or fuck anything up, and quietly lets a good company perform How can you tell if a company is good? Because trillions of dollars are spent by banks, private equity, hedge funds, and others truing to figure out if a company is "good." > By that measure, you might as well save yourself the executive compensation and potential for disaster by just not having a CEO at all Sure, but somebody is still making the decisions the CEO would have otherwise made. Maybe it's a good thing that the power isn't concentrated in one person; I'd be open to that. But you now have to trust that each department head is making good decisions. That's fine if they were already making good decisions, hit it's disastrous if they weren't.
bdcravens 3mo ago
I think it's the other way around. They're not talking about CEO ability, they're talking about CEO performance, which aren't the same. Money follows performance (based on outcomes, not actual talent). It's like professional sports - win a championship, get a big payday, regardless of how it happened.
- shimman 3mo ago
  No, the only thing that matters is what you can negotiate. Since most executives + board vote on their own salaries, which ones have you ever seen negotiated to lower their salaries? It's an extreme abuse of power, especially since workers are the sole reason why a company is able to succeed or not and they don't get the same privileges as a board + executive. Not too mention most corporations + startups are setup to encourage the worse forms of human collaboration (dictatorships + centrally planned economies).

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

bko 3mo ago

Investors aren't dumb. What does Ivy gain in this trade by just raising a lot of money and running it poorly? You think he can raise a huge round and just decide to pay himself $20m a year? Capital is not a moat. There are entire industries (VC, PE, Banks, etc) that are looking to write checks. Nothing would make them happier than to give you money, under the condition that there is significant upside (more VC) or assets (PE, Banks) and you commit to doing the hard work for very little pay. This is actually how the world works.

mikert89 3mo ago
the world doesnt work like an efficient machine, and capital is far more of a moat than people want to admit. these "founders" are more like professional managers from the same backgrounds as the investors there is alot of beta involved, i.e. put 10M into payroll startup xyz, expect some rate of return.
- bko 3mo ago
  Saying capital is a moat is not convincing. From the vast amount of VC money going around, nearly half a trillion expected in 2026, not including other forms of funding, it's safe to say that there is a lot of capital for people that can execute. I don't see how you can translate money to product/startup success. You think there's some magic lever you can press to get people to use your product? Selling $10 for $5 and building a market like that is rare (moviepass) but even that is incredibly difficult. Advertising is very inefficient and sales is hard. https://dealroom.co/guides/global https://dealroom.co/guides/global
palata 3mo ago
> Investors aren't dumb. They are not dumb, just incompetent in the domains where they invest the money. And surrounded by yes-men because they are the ones writing the checks.
bluecheese452 3mo ago
Assuming he doesn’t completely shit the bed he can spin any mediocre tenure into a great success and now he has experience running a company.

pj_mukh 3mo ago

"This is actually how the world works" The level to which our algorithmic feeds have made us so confidently wrong about things is so deeply problematic. Tech's original sin keeps biting us back. This rampant cynicism and nihilism borne from constant bombardment of headlines has us acting like we know the personal stories of all leadership all around the world, and it's deeply damaging to our trust in the system. Plenty of Ivy League leaders quietly working away at their job, doing the best they can with great results and no one to write about them and you'll never hear about it anywhere. This is obvious to anyone on a second thought, but the first reactionary thought is what's acted on...always.

mikert89 3mo ago
my comments are from living in nyc for 15 years, alot of lived experience and meeting people behind closed doors
- quacked 3mo ago
  I was part of a company that was doing 10s of M in revenue, a few hundred employees, and had the technical prowess and IP to become a multi billion unicorn but the blue blood CEO was so clueless that he lost literally his entire technical core staff to incredible mismanagement. My favorite memory of him, and this sounds like a fake anecdote, is that on a big emergency call where he was pulling a huge amount of engineers and project managers off an account that was on fire to help with an account that was even more on fire (thus depriving the original account of labor and guaranteeing it would be in the same state in a few weeks), he spent 5 minutes talking about the chartered fishing trip he was on in Canada and then asked the audience if anyone and any plans for the weekend. Someone spoke up and said "yeah, I'll be working."
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - enoint 3mo ago
    Sure, but his equity award deadline had passed, thus the fishing trip. And if things go well with Everett on the trip, the new funding would mean he can ditch those risky accounts.

sumanthvepa 3mo ago

Dammit! Why am I the only 'Ivy type' that cannot raise a round?!!! .

mikert89 3mo ago
you messed up!
danans 3mo ago
It's who you know. You are just more likely to know the right people to raise money than a random non-Ivy type.

dexterdog 3mo ago

In the startup world they're only really looking to bat better than 10 pct overall to mark success, right? Do we wonder why it's all just a crap shoot?