Comment by no_wizard
16 hours ago
That’s not even a good argument for whatever it is you’re trying to say.
While you may not like the energy behind OPs statements he’s pretty clear: CEOs and executives in general face almost zero consequences for their decisions that affect hundreds or thousands of people
I’m with OP, thy should face real consequences for stupid decisions
If you make bad enough decisions, your customers leave, your company dies, and/or you are fired by the board.
CEOs get fired all the time, and companies die all the time. It's part of life, and so are layoffs.
There's no need for some sort of additional punitive actions to be taken. If you control a company, you have the right to do layoffs, and if you're an employee, you take that risk of being laid off because you prefer it to going out and trying to grow your own company from scratch.
It’s fine if someone doesn’t believe that executives should not be held to additional high consequence standard, but you’re boiling down this argument without addressing the central element at play which is viability and wealth gap.
Now, you can absolutely hold a different position here, that’s okay, I’m fine with that, but at least address it head on.
Consider the fact that those getting laid off have disproportionate negative affects compared to what executives face for making terrible decisions in the first place. Jack still keeps his aspen home and whatever wealth he’s extracted out of the company. So he faces no real downside here. He could run block into the ground and still have more money than he would know what to do with.
You’re arguing about shares of paper entitling people to do things to other people’s lives without facing much actual consequence in their personal lives.
Not to mention professional, I’ve watched executives jump from company to company doing terrible things and they still keep getting hired.
Where as the average person is often advised to reduce or obfuscate the fact they were laid off less there be discrimination.
Now you can argue that executives shouldn’t face higher consequences in exchange for wielding such immense power over the lives of those which they employ, I ask that you say it plain, don’t hide behind feigned guise of people who live in a world where they don’t have a choice but to work for corporations or not have a roof over their head and basic needs met.
It’s fine if you want to defend that, but don’t act like people are just making a deliberate choice. This is a choice society has made for them and the wealthiest perpetuate
To me what you're upset about basically sounds like, "People who have more money/power/etc have it easier than those who don't."
Yes, yes, they do. So what?
All else being equal, greater wealth generally brings greater ease and comfort. A billionaire’s life is easier than a millionaire’s, a millionaire’s life is easier than being a middle-class Westerner, middle class living is easier than living below the poverty line, living below the poverty line in a wealthy country is easier than being poor in a developing country, and being poor in a developing country is easier than surviving as a subsistence farmer or living without shelter at all.
All else being equal, if you're a majority owner in a company, you're going to get away with a lot more than if you are a smaller owner, or a non-owner, or an employee, or a customer. All else being equal, if you're a general in the military, you're going to have more power and more leeway than if you're a lieutenant or a private.
Etc etc.
I fail to see what is wrong with this.
3 replies →
> If you make bad enough decisions, your customers leave, your company dies, and/or you are fired by the board.
Not true. Buffet's written a lot of great stuff on this subject.
The number of famous CEOs who've hopped around from company to company despite being terrible at their job is probably in the dozens. The number of founders/CEOs whose companies have died is demonstrably in the millions.
Also, there are plenty of regular employees who suck at their jobs and yet manage to hold onto them, get promoted, get new and lucrative job offers, etc.
>I’m with OP, thy should face real consequences for stupid decisions
I don't think the investor cares. The investor wants 1 in X shot at beating the majority and is agnostic to failure.
I know investors largely don’t care but that’s the point, they do t care because they don’t have to face any real consequences of bad decisions in aggregate