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The author lost me with his unabashed bias in speaking of other executives: In the case of someone like Mayer or Steve Jobs—who was accused of many of the same
by ajiang 13y ago
The author lost me with his unabashed bias in speaking of other executives:
In the case of someone like Mayer or Steve Jobs—who was accused of many of the same flaws—those strengths and weaknesses make for far better results than the executive alternative, whether it’s a corporate hatchet woman like HP’s Carly Fiorina, an overpaid functionary like Citi’s Vikram Pandit, or an unrepentant economy wrecker like Lehman’s Dick Fuld, not to mention undistinguished wheel tillers like Apple’s John Sculley and his current reincarnation, Tim Cook. Whatever Mayer does with Yahoo, she at least has a fighting chance to revive the company, something that could never have been said of her predecessors.
He could easily make the same point without adding the unnecessary negative adjectives: "Overpaid", "Unrepentant", "Undistinguished". For the record, I think Tim Cook is a very distinguished wheel tiller (if by wheel tiller you mean operationals/supply chain expert) and Vikram Pandit earned $1 in total compensation in 2009-2010, only getting paid starting in 2011 when Citi had already been profitable for a year. Before anyone argues the merits of Tim or Vikram, let me emphasize that my point is not on their merits as CEOs but on the way they were described to make a point for Marissa Mayer.
- curiouslurker 13y agoAgree. Some good points in the article but he ends up losing credibility with sweeping statements and a distortion of facts. Tim cooks is a highly capable CEO but just has a different skill set. Peter Drucker said it well, people with great strengths also have great weaknesses. A sure path to mediocrity is to glorify all round generalists. Single purpose tools will win over them any day! (which I believe is the main point the article is trying to make, whether it be PM'ing, operations, people management or even sales!). Jobs would not have been as succesful in phase 2 of his career without Tim Cook. Cook is an operations expert and a great people manager. He cleaned up Job's messes--being abusive and a royal jerk, taking credit for other people's ideas and being a terrible listener. And where would jobs be without Woz's technical wizardy?
- lhnz 13y ago>> A sure path to mediocrity is to glorify all round generalists. Single purpose tools will win over them any day! Except the days in which they don't.
- felipe 13y agoWhat is the problem in calling public people for what they really are? Vikram Pandit is overpaid [1], John Sculley was clearly unfit for the position, and although Tim Cook is talented as a supply chain expert, he is not the visionary that Steve Jobs was. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=vikram+pandit+bonuses https://www.google.com/search?q=vikram+pandit+bonuses
- jljljl 13y agoI'm not going to argue about how much Vikram Pandit should be paid, but its worth noting that the 2011 bonus and beyond came after: 1) Pandit was paid a $1 salary for 2009 and 2010 2) Pandit not receiving a bonus for nearly 4 years [1] It's probably better to look at Pandit's pay across his entire tenure as CEO, vs. objecting to a single lump sum payment. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-12/pandit-compensation-climbs-toward-53-million-as-citigroup-revenue-slumps.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-12/pandit-compensation... Also, while Tim Cook is not quite the visionary that Steve Jobs is, Apple's supply chain and ability to exert quality and pricing pressure over suppliers is a huge competitive advantage, and arguably one that keeps their profits so far above other hardware manufacturers. There are plenty of companies with awesome vision that fail because they can't execute the way Apple can.
- felipe 13y agoWhen Steve Jobs accepted the job as a interim-CEO to clean-up Sculley's mistakes, back when Apple was almost bankrupt, he accepted the $1 salary on the expectation that he would be paid only if Apple would perform well. That's how much faith and commitment he had in Apple succeeding, and that was before the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad... Compare Steve Jobs attitude with Pandit's, who announced he would "reduce" his salary to $1 in 2009, only after the $25b in govt bail-out. On that same year, he was compensated "just a few million dollars" (as opposed to $38m in 2008), plus $165m for his hedge fund. [1] Yes, Pandit was overpaid. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Pandit#Compensation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Pandit#Compensation
- jljljl 13y ago
- bicknergseng 13y agoI came to say the same thing about Cook. If you look at Jobs, Mayer, etc as "product managers" that focus on creating value vs the others named that slash expenses, you have to recognize Cook's brilliance in creating the world's greatest supply, operations, and logistics machines. It's the offensive line to the iPad and iPhone's star quarterback, and a superior product in it's own right. That said, maybe Cook's dream of a well oiled machine is more limited than Jobs' vision. Or maybe it needs to be expanded to not just be about Apple.
- enraged_camel 13y ago>>and Vikram Pandit earned $1 in total compensation in 2009-2010 I don't disagree with the rest of what you said, but this is bullshit. Most CEOs are compensated via stock options. So the fact that his salary was $1 doesn't mean anything.
- ajiang 13y agoHe didn't earn any stock options during the 2009-2010 fiscal years, hence why I said total compensation instead of salary.