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I have learned that the purpose of a CEO in many (most?) companies is not to actually run the company. Their purpose is to be the human delegate that represent
by bob1029 3mo ago
I have learned that the purpose of a CEO in many (most?) companies is not to actually run the company.
Their purpose is to be the human delegate that represents the corporate entity. They are empowered to act on behalf of the entire organization. This is important because a corporation of many individuals generally cannot act as one. You can sometimes get close with really, really good teamwork, but that's still not enough for a lot of customers.
If you are in some regulated B2B context, not having a CEO or having a "non-traditional" CEO can result in lost deals. The counterparties are looking for "one throat to choke" when they are being made responsible for approving large contracts. They want a person's cell phone number they can call when they're having a bad mood about whatever they've just paid for. They don't want to talk to your developers or the cranky old founders. They want to talk to a person who can be summoned to any arbitrary golf course within 48 hours and who will arrive in a fantastic mood 100% of the time. This person often doesn't have to know a goddamn thing about what your company's product actually does. They just have to be a delegate. A conduit of information and a representative element.
- 4lx87 3mo agoHuh. The sales team at my company is the one who closes millions in ARR and all the enterprise contracts - not the CEO. I’m sure being the “conduit of information and a representative element” is very important though. Someone has to attend investor meetings…
- zamadatix 3mo agoNone of these other teams ever involve the CEO for key activities? E.g. sales has a major client that wants top level visibility to sign the contract on the big deal? I was in sales many years and anything from letters of commitment to flyouts with the CEO was always a big factor in the large deals - it gave a sense of "we have full assurance they are focused on this" to the customer and was very helpful. I'm not sure it justifies the salary, but that's a different thing.
- pixelatedindex 3mo agoNot at my workplace, the highest as far as I know is two levels below the CEO, usually a VP of some kind.
- jamwil 3mo agoIt’s a function of relative scale. If you’re a Fortune 100 CEO there is still a point where you would quarterback a sale, but that would be like… a $10 billion+ contract with the federal government.
- mook 3mo agoInteresting. At a smaller company I worked at, the CEO was a sales role, as far as I could tell.
- cristi_baluta 3mo agoThe only thing that i know that my ceo did was to sell his company, that went to shit after that
- notfromhere 3mo agosure, that doesn't mean pay is justified
- RajT88 3mo agoThat is why the E stands for Executive. COO's run the company. The CEO wines and dines and handles vision and escalations. You have described it to a T. Now, sometimes CEO's run he company. Often not though.
- morkalork 3mo agoIt's also the rolodex they come with. They've got the friend that knows someone on the board of the company you want to talk to so now instead of sales doing a cold outreach your company has a meeting with their CEO directly that no one else would normally be able to get. Neither CEO is that technical, and your technical merits had absolutely no impact on if you got the meeting or not, literally just a who-knows-who game. But yeah sure, an AI will replace that.
- darth_avocado 3mo agoSo when the corporations do something illegal why doesn’t this conduit go to jail or pay out of pocket for misconduct? Or is the said conduit only in play for all the convenient aspects of the job like firing people while taking millions in bonuses?
- LearnYouALisp 3mo agoAka all the benefits, none of the negs why if YOU profit off a single copyright violation, it could be $250,000 and up to five years, but if you do it against millions of artists, and have a corporation (and money), it's just a few thousand per and you walk and keep doing business (never mind pretending the rest of it is 'fair use', when no human work is being done to produce the Fourier-combined ploduct and nothing new is added).
- raincom 3mo agoIf a business is a two person shop, it is very easy to prove the culpability of a CEO. However, in a large corporation, it is very hard to prove the culpability of a CEO, as too many people are involved. That's why you see small business owners are easier to prosecute than CEOs of larger corporations.
- nobodyandproud 3mo agoSize isn’t an excuse. If there’s no real accountability then it’s a very real and negative problem.
- blitzar 3mo agoit is very hard to prove the culpability of a CEO for anything bad it is very easy to prove to the CEO earned the credit for all things good
- ryandrake 3mo agoYup, when the company succeeds or does something good, it's the CEO's excellent leadership. When the company fails or does something bad, the culpability gets spread vaguely over the entire company.
- mathattack 3mo agoAlso a single person for the board to hold accountable. In essence the individual that represents the company to outside groups. It doesn’t have to be this way. Other working cultures have adopted committees as the top. Is is the dominant form in US shareholder capitalism. The original post is surely satire.
- miyoji 3mo ago> The original post is surely satire. Yes, they say so at the bottom of the page.
- reinitctxoffset 3mo agoClaude is gaff-immune in 187 languages, never dips it's pen in the company ink, and can remember every calibrated nuance of guidance at every earnings call ever. It can impartially judge senior staff, provide updates to the board at any time, and personally interact with every customer. CEO seems like a great job for AI.
- qznc 3mo agoSounds dangerous for liability reasons. Sometimes it is important to not write things down and have plausible deniability. Courts getting access to everything the CEO knows is not something a corporation wants.
- reverius42 3mo agoAre you saying this hypothetical corporation is already doing something illegal, and that's why they don't want courts to have access? That intentional hiding sounds in-and-of-itself illegal too.
- cindyllm 3mo ago[dead]
- RunSet 3mo ago> Their purpose is to be the human delegate that represents the corporate entity. A simulacrum of accountability to be replaced in lieu of ever acknowledging fault. No machine could ever replace a flesh-and-blood scapegoat.
- Hizonner 3mo agoEven acknowledging fault is a poor substitute for not fucking up in the first place.
- mattertoast 3mo agoNepo babies, trust fund kids, and frat boys the world around reading this comment out loud to each other on the golf course laughing, "HE ACTUALLY BOUGHT IT! AHAHAHAHA"
- tesnorindian 3mo agoIt is plain simple that the board requires a scapegoat.