What's missing with American CEOs?(albertcory50.substack.com)
albertcory50.substack.com
What's missing with American CEOs?
https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/whats-missing-with-american-ceos
86 comments
The author mentions the stock options, which create incentive for success, but points out that the problem is no downside risk. Golden parachutes are counter to those incentives.
Thank you. "Skin" is risk, not just reward.
The risk is supposed to be your comp going down if you make the stock price go down.
> Yes, the Board can arrange it so they make a lot of money if the company does well, but if it tanks, they’ll still be OK. Here are some examples[...]
Do you disagree with this thesis?
Do you disagree with this thesis?
No, "your comp going down" is not "risk."
So is a founder that owns 100% of their company not exposed to "risk" because the worst that can happen is the value of the thing they have goes down?
What exactly is risk to you? Losing a hand if the company does poorly?
What exactly is risk to you? Losing a hand if the company does poorly?
Read the book.
To clarify that flippant reply: I have four examples of skin in the game, at the end of the article. Putting "losing your comp" in that category is trivializing. Risk is something serious and irreparable.
Depends on the founder's situation, whether they're independently wealthy and whether their investors (if any) have taken on some of the risk. But for some bootstrappers, they get next to no salary and if their company fails, they might lose their house and be unable to feed their family. They're truly all-in.
That's not going to happen with the first example from the article:
> Fiorina received a larger signing offer than any of her predecessors, including: US$65 million in restricted stock to compensate her for the Lucent stock and options she left behind, a US$3 million signing bonus, a US$1 million annual salary (plus a US$1.25–US$3.75 million annual bonus), US$36,000 in mortgage assistance, a relocation allowance, and permission (and encouragement) to use company planes for personal affairs.
That's not going to happen with the first example from the article:
> Fiorina received a larger signing offer than any of her predecessors, including: US$65 million in restricted stock to compensate her for the Lucent stock and options she left behind, a US$3 million signing bonus, a US$1 million annual salary (plus a US$1.25–US$3.75 million annual bonus), US$36,000 in mortgage assistance, a relocation allowance, and permission (and encouragement) to use company planes for personal affairs.
I’d like to hear your reasons for #2. Here’s mine:
CEO is largely a figurehead position. Boards know quite well that CEOs aren’t the clock maker toiling away at creating perfection. They have very talented senior staff, middle managers and individual contributors that actually make it happen.
However, boards know the market doesn’t give a flying shit about those people. Boards know that CEOs carry a certain political weight in their very presence, and so they have to make their comp packages as attractive as possible so they have the best chance at attracting the best CEOs, because if they do, they know the market will respond positively. If a good CEO sees Company X sending their poor performing leader packing without a golden parachute, there’s no way he’s going to go there. If the market sees the same thing, they’re going to think the same thing.
It’s all one big emperors new clothes bullshit show.
CEO is largely a figurehead position. Boards know quite well that CEOs aren’t the clock maker toiling away at creating perfection. They have very talented senior staff, middle managers and individual contributors that actually make it happen.
However, boards know the market doesn’t give a flying shit about those people. Boards know that CEOs carry a certain political weight in their very presence, and so they have to make their comp packages as attractive as possible so they have the best chance at attracting the best CEOs, because if they do, they know the market will respond positively. If a good CEO sees Company X sending their poor performing leader packing without a golden parachute, there’s no way he’s going to go there. If the market sees the same thing, they’re going to think the same thing.
It’s all one big emperors new clothes bullshit show.
I think you're missing/misunderstanding the mechanism for the above. Boards willfully don't know much of anything at a large corp (especially with all the DEI nonsense putting even less competent people on the board). You have to remember that this is an infinitely repeating game and there's basically only two board member strategies at play and they depend on whether there is a single large and involved shareholding block or not. if there is a large shareholding block actively involved you can play the competent and possibly disagreeable board member strategy because your tenure on the board is based on keeping the involved shareholder happy and voting for you. If there is no large and involved shareholding block (i.e. many, many large companies today) then the winning board member strategy is getting management to keep recommending you because an overwhelming majority of the time the uninvolved smaller shareholders vote management recommendation.
You want a board to behave like the first scenario, but it's usually the second scenario you are in. As the game repeats that translates to higher comp to the ceo and to the board (since the ceo recommends his buddies deserve more comp) and the board basically tries to side with the ceo as far as it can without incurring personal legal liability and as long as that ceo doesn't underperform in a way that is publicly embarassing they can often hold on for several years and make out with millions while the board gets decent comp for almost no work.
I don't think you can easily fix this but I do notice that many of these companies are pretty clearly oligopolists under the pre-rehnquist definition so the solution could take the form of breaking these large companies up until the smaller companies do end up with a share holding block that both cares and is big enough to discipline the board and ceo.
You want a board to behave like the first scenario, but it's usually the second scenario you are in. As the game repeats that translates to higher comp to the ceo and to the board (since the ceo recommends his buddies deserve more comp) and the board basically tries to side with the ceo as far as it can without incurring personal legal liability and as long as that ceo doesn't underperform in a way that is publicly embarassing they can often hold on for several years and make out with millions while the board gets decent comp for almost no work.
I don't think you can easily fix this but I do notice that many of these companies are pretty clearly oligopolists under the pre-rehnquist definition so the solution could take the form of breaking these large companies up until the smaller companies do end up with a share holding block that both cares and is big enough to discipline the board and ceo.
Boards are often composed of failed or failing CEOs, celebrities, and others with questionable management skills.
Let's say you are on the board of Apple and you are looking at Tim Cook's retirement. Would you look at a Senior VP from Microsoft? An Associate COO of Intel? The former CTO of Ford Motors? A department head at Via? Ryan Reynolds? The CFO of Apple? The person who was Jim Keller's coworker at Harris and DEC, and worked two levels below Jim Keller at AMD and SiByte?
Can you or anybody put in writing what qualities a prospective CEO of Apple should possess that would differentiate one of these candidates above the others? Let's say you are Al Gore or Al Gorsky. How do you decide who to hire?
Let's say you are on the board of Apple and you are looking at Tim Cook's retirement. Would you look at a Senior VP from Microsoft? An Associate COO of Intel? The former CTO of Ford Motors? A department head at Via? Ryan Reynolds? The CFO of Apple? The person who was Jim Keller's coworker at Harris and DEC, and worked two levels below Jim Keller at AMD and SiByte?
Can you or anybody put in writing what qualities a prospective CEO of Apple should possess that would differentiate one of these candidates above the others? Let's say you are Al Gore or Al Gorsky. How do you decide who to hire?
Boards don't do the researching part but headhunters. Then the board choose the pick from a nice pptx.
I claim that headhunters can't do it either. Nor can anybody else.
Yeah, figurehead is definitely part of it. Kinda like when you hire a consulting firm to tell you about problems you already knew existed. They're not actually telling you anything new, they just provide useful cover for whatever actions you already wanted to take. Also:
- Nepotism / boy's club – everybody is kinda friends / in the same circle. Once you get in, you're mostly in for life.
- Modern financial instruments allow the smartest person in the room (i.e. hedge funds, etc) to make money on either side of the inflection point. Doesn't matter if a bad CEO tanks the stock price if you expected that to happen and are the one with puts while the rubes (retail investors) are holding the dwindling stock.
- Nepotism / boy's club – everybody is kinda friends / in the same circle. Once you get in, you're mostly in for life.
- Modern financial instruments allow the smartest person in the room (i.e. hedge funds, etc) to make money on either side of the inflection point. Doesn't matter if a bad CEO tanks the stock price if you expected that to happen and are the one with puts while the rubes (retail investors) are holding the dwindling stock.
This trope of destroying the company for short term gains and raising the stock price gets trotted out all the time. But can you even provide an example of it? It's not like wall st is made up of complete idiots who are going to keep falling for that.
Bed, Bath and Beyond was discussed here previously, most recently at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37637615.
Unity game engine
The stock had been slowly going up the weeks leading up to the announcement, then crashed on the day of the announcement, has been going down ever since and is now trading close to its all time low.
Looks like they have never turned a profit, so how is this an example?
CEO has a track record of making damaging statements.
CEO pushes though decision on a monetisation plan so stupid that people are screaming internally about it before it's released.
The changes in question destroy the brand's reputation and decades of goodwill.
Many customers actively port their games away.
It's characteristic of short term thinking. The only concern is "what might raise revenue this quarter". If they'd thought beyond that they'd have seen that the damage to the brand is likely to be far more costly.
This line of thinking seems to have become pervasive. No thought is given to producing something people want to pay for. Instead, they squeeze until people get fed up and the product dies.
CEO pushes though decision on a monetisation plan so stupid that people are screaming internally about it before it's released.
The changes in question destroy the brand's reputation and decades of goodwill.
Many customers actively port their games away.
It's characteristic of short term thinking. The only concern is "what might raise revenue this quarter". If they'd thought beyond that they'd have seen that the damage to the brand is likely to be far more costly.
This line of thinking seems to have become pervasive. No thought is given to producing something people want to pay for. Instead, they squeeze until people get fed up and the product dies.
But by your theory this short term decision making would be rewarded by an increase in profits and the share price. It hasn't been. This is just a case of bad management being punished by the stock market as it should be. The system is working here.
Edit: not your theory, but the commenter I was replying to above.
Edit: not your theory, but the commenter I was replying to above.
GE?
Good exemple. They doctored their balance sheets for years, managed to broke a _very_ lucrative deal with Alstom, buying it with GE shares (with doctored balance sheet, still) and with the help of the FBI, then the executives and the lawyers earned an impossible comp, after reality came knocking down 3 years later, and neither exec nor lawyers faced anything.
Good job by them, they managed to set the industry back 10 years, and got rich doing so.
Good job by them, they managed to set the industry back 10 years, and got rich doing so.
For every example this article gives, there are so many counter examples that it feels like his entire theory is bunk. Yes, having skin in the game is good, that almost is a tautology but do CEO’s truly not have a skin in the game?
There are far more successful CEO run corporations compared to family run corporations. Satya Nadella has been instrumental in Microsoft’s resurgence, but it’s very possible that Satya could have done a bad job, got a fat severance, write books and joined other company boards instead. Would you have gotten better work from Satya, if you could threaten to publicly humiliate him if he failed? I predict not. In fact this article tries to create a simple rule for a problem that has plagued humanity since its existence and will continue plaguing humanity. This is of course the problem of choosing a good leader for a company. A good leader will lead the company well, a bad leader will drive it to the ground and then save his skin when he has to. Of course you can try encouraging bad leaders to be good by forcing them to have skin in the game, but you’re better off just finding a good CEO instead. Determining whether a candidate will be a good CEO is a matter of judgement and cannot be algorithmically solved unfortunately. This is where the quality of a company’s board is important, a low quality board will be unable to even find the person that can right a sinking ship
There are far more successful CEO run corporations compared to family run corporations. Satya Nadella has been instrumental in Microsoft’s resurgence, but it’s very possible that Satya could have done a bad job, got a fat severance, write books and joined other company boards instead. Would you have gotten better work from Satya, if you could threaten to publicly humiliate him if he failed? I predict not. In fact this article tries to create a simple rule for a problem that has plagued humanity since its existence and will continue plaguing humanity. This is of course the problem of choosing a good leader for a company. A good leader will lead the company well, a bad leader will drive it to the ground and then save his skin when he has to. Of course you can try encouraging bad leaders to be good by forcing them to have skin in the game, but you’re better off just finding a good CEO instead. Determining whether a candidate will be a good CEO is a matter of judgement and cannot be algorithmically solved unfortunately. This is where the quality of a company’s board is important, a low quality board will be unable to even find the person that can right a sinking ship
I think you would struggle to find examples of CEOs seeing negative consequences from poor performance that wasn’t outright fraud.
What negative consequences would you propose? Isn't firing enough just like for every other job?
The article highlights some at the end for exploration (I also left a summary on another reply if you want a TLDR).
But to tread new ground: not really. Firing is scary for a regular employee because they need to work to live, pay off debts, potentially care for family, and more. Many can't just take off a year without these finances without losing some of these factors. For many still, even a few months of no income can have heavy impacts, especially if we step outside our HN tech bubble.
A quick google tells me that the median CEO makes 20 million a year. they really don't need to work a day in their lives after a mere year or 2 of work. All the above financial factors simply aren't a thing unless their quality of life is insanely lavish (like, a full time crew managing a yatch lavish). What's more, their severance is again, usually in the millions. they get rewarded for failing more money than your average worker will make in their career.
I don't have an answer (none of the answers in the article are particularly good), but we can start by snipping those parachutes out of contracts. Severance's goal is to minimize financial impact to employees when a company downsizes. your average CEO does not have financial impact that a middle class worker would take any sympathies toward.
But to tread new ground: not really. Firing is scary for a regular employee because they need to work to live, pay off debts, potentially care for family, and more. Many can't just take off a year without these finances without losing some of these factors. For many still, even a few months of no income can have heavy impacts, especially if we step outside our HN tech bubble.
A quick google tells me that the median CEO makes 20 million a year. they really don't need to work a day in their lives after a mere year or 2 of work. All the above financial factors simply aren't a thing unless their quality of life is insanely lavish (like, a full time crew managing a yatch lavish). What's more, their severance is again, usually in the millions. they get rewarded for failing more money than your average worker will make in their career.
I don't have an answer (none of the answers in the article are particularly good), but we can start by snipping those parachutes out of contracts. Severance's goal is to minimize financial impact to employees when a company downsizes. your average CEO does not have financial impact that a middle class worker would take any sympathies toward.
> A quick google tells me that the median CEO makes 20 million a year.
What a damn lie. The median CEO pay in the USA is $189,520, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics [1].
$20 million is median pay for CEOs of S&P 500 companies, the biggest companies in the country…I wonder why people let themselves get suckered by clickbait.
1- https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/top-executives.htm#:~:tex....
What a damn lie. The median CEO pay in the USA is $189,520, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics [1].
$20 million is median pay for CEOs of S&P 500 companies, the biggest companies in the country…I wonder why people let themselves get suckered by clickbait.
1- https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/top-executives.htm#:~:tex....
Point taken, but I think your link takes the "top executive" too much in the other direction. Mentioning that the median top executive in the government sector (which would be what, the president? Senate?) being $120k in 2022 makes me think that that title isn't quite what people think of, similar to being a "vice president" of a bank.
to come at a comprimise instead of calling everyone liars over statistics with differing definitions: Salary.com lists a median of $830k. Not quite "retire in 2 years" money, but well past middle class and more than enough to establish your own safety net. My main point doesn't change here.
https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/chief-execu...
to come at a comprimise instead of calling everyone liars over statistics with differing definitions: Salary.com lists a median of $830k. Not quite "retire in 2 years" money, but well past middle class and more than enough to establish your own safety net. My main point doesn't change here.
https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/chief-execu...
Yet, many CEO-s seem to be appearing again and again (even bad ones as others pointed out). I do not know many, but the few CEO-s I have personally interacted with seem completely driven by the wish to succeed, having some form of lacking empathy, being very optimistic and being a bit charismatic.
With such traits potential punishments will not work great (they will just think "it will never happen to me"), hence it is why I think rewards are used more, but mostly as a form of measuring "success". After couple of millions it is not really about the money but about being more "successful" than the others.
With such traits potential punishments will not work great (they will just think "it will never happen to me"), hence it is why I think rewards are used more, but mostly as a form of measuring "success". After couple of millions it is not really about the money but about being more "successful" than the others.
They can still crash to the ground, but the main factor I care more about is not burning the working class along the way. All the higher class CEO firings tended to come with mass layoffs, if not the company shutting down. So the hard worker who was hoping for a promotion was not only denied but let go because of decisions beyond their control.
Something like a wage floor means that success benefits all workers who can then rise up there or in future ventures. And if it crashes the employees benefitted somewhat from the peak as opposed to today where even an inflation based raised isn't guaranteed. That can also be done with minimum wage laws, but this is a way to keep the hyper successful in check without necessarily impacting smaller business who can legitimately only offer the bare minimum.
Something like a wage floor means that success benefits all workers who can then rise up there or in future ventures. And if it crashes the employees benefitted somewhat from the peak as opposed to today where even an inflation based raised isn't guaranteed. That can also be done with minimum wage laws, but this is a way to keep the hyper successful in check without necessarily impacting smaller business who can legitimately only offer the bare minimum.
> There are far more successful CEO run corporations compared to family run corporations.
No, there are not, if we look at survival (the entire point of Skin in the Game).
Find us some examples of non-family-run corporations more than 200 years old.
No, there are not, if we look at survival (the entire point of Skin in the Game).
Find us some examples of non-family-run corporations more than 200 years old.
The whole concept of non-family-run corporations is barely 200 years old. At that point in time, it literally took an act of the legislature to form a corporation, and this right was typically only granted for a limited time for a very specific purpose (i.e. specifically and only to build a railroad between two specific cities, and set to come up for renewal in a few years).
On the contrary, the NYSE was founded in 1792. State Street Bank and Chubb Insurance Group were both founded before 1800, and are not family-owned AFAICT.
So the question still stands.
So the question still stands.
I understand the stock market is rewarding Nadella's Microsoft. My question is what exactly has he done to deserve the praise?
I think he’s done a far better job than Steve Ballmer. When he took over Microsoft had completely missed the smartphone revolution, desktop sales were reducing and it did not in general look like a great outlook for the company. It seems like Satyas focus on Azure and more recently AI helped bouy Microsoft’s stock growth
It's hilarious that while discussing getting Nassim Taleb wrong he actually gets it wrong differently...
To be clear, Taleb has never revealed publicly any proof of trades he has conducted, any proof of profits, and he has written books of wisdom without ever showing his data. I consider him a popsci fraud like Dan Ariely - show the data or GTFO
Right. Had this argument years ago in Wikipedia.
The basic concept of Taleb's Empirica fund was to buy cheap options that were way out of the money in hopes of a "black swan" event. Most of those options expired un-exercised. So the fund lost money most years, but made huge profits in a market crash year. The big question is whether this is a net win over a few business cycles.
The basic concept of Taleb's Empirica fund was to buy cheap options that were way out of the money in hopes of a "black swan" event. Most of those options expired un-exercised. So the fund lost money most years, but made huge profits in a market crash year. The big question is whether this is a net win over a few business cycles.
The real question is whether the theoretical plan actually existed. He has never proven any of this. I can claim anything future or past but without receipts it’s just intellectual masturbation, not real skin in the game.
Check out Mark Spitznagel.
And Taleb wrote a whole book of fluff called Black Swan that had no insight whatsoever and could be summed up in one paragraph
It’s great if you received wisdom from his fiction books but if you actually think he has made any profits whatsoever from his trading advice you are going to wind up empty handed.
It’s like learning a great writer of crime novels is actually a housewife from Missouri - a great imagination, but all of their ideas come from TV.
It’s like learning a great writer of crime novels is actually a housewife from Missouri - a great imagination, but all of their ideas come from TV.
To be fair, his first (and best) book was about dynamic pricing of options, and wasn't simply (ahem) derivative like his philosophy stuff.
They're like self-health books posing as insightful.
Newton had horrible investments so his theories are bad.
Newton didn’t pretend to be a master of predicting the future of market performance. I trust people like Warren Buffett a lot more than someone who has never proven any skin in the game whatsoever
If his theories are about investments, yes, they are bed. Luckily they are about physics.
Would you elaborate for the uninitiated?
He misspells his name ("Nessim") while talking about how he misordered his first and middle names.
Sounds like he Igenvalued himself
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Agree with the title but like none of the rest. Do they think that people joining family businesses do a good job somehow? There are countless stories of people inheriting things and ruining them because they don't have the acumen of the original creator.
But basically agree that, yes, CEOs don't have skin in the game. In fact almost everyone in big corporations doesn't. It seems to become more about not taking risks that would be socially embarrassing than about doing a good job.
But what could give them "skin"? Maybe fierce competition? But that's kinda lame. With efficiency gains from technology we should be able to live in a world that's not based around fierce competition.
Better than that is fierce accountability. From who? Everyone you can think of. In particular, accountability that they do their jobs right, make the right choices, charge fair prices, treat employees well, treat society and the earth well, etc.
If you think about it... there is no reason in principle that corporations ought to be secretive. Since they should be competing on "honest work", not on tricking and one-upping each other, it seems to me that they should be entirely open and judged for their daily behavior.
The trick, of course, is giving that accountability any teeth.
But basically agree that, yes, CEOs don't have skin in the game. In fact almost everyone in big corporations doesn't. It seems to become more about not taking risks that would be socially embarrassing than about doing a good job.
But what could give them "skin"? Maybe fierce competition? But that's kinda lame. With efficiency gains from technology we should be able to live in a world that's not based around fierce competition.
Better than that is fierce accountability. From who? Everyone you can think of. In particular, accountability that they do their jobs right, make the right choices, charge fair prices, treat employees well, treat society and the earth well, etc.
If you think about it... there is no reason in principle that corporations ought to be secretive. Since they should be competing on "honest work", not on tricking and one-upping each other, it seems to me that they should be entirely open and judged for their daily behavior.
The trick, of course, is giving that accountability any teeth.
>But what could give them "skin"?
they bury their own lede at the end but they elaborate on it:
> Shame as "Skin"
Japan is (in)famous for this. Honestly, read this section yourself, it's a very interesting (but IMO, not necessarily "productive") way to conduct business via aggressive risk-aversion.
>Stigma as "Skin"
used Germany as an example, but it's the dead obvious solution. If you screwed up, of course you should be less trusted in future endeavors. Especially if you were doing illegal stuff.
>Money as “Skin”
the more ideological solution that's more of a daydream than any real system.
- CEO pays part of their net worth to the company and should earn it back via success - Salary is capped at X times the lowest paid employee - no Golden Parachute if you burn the company to the ground.
>Better than that is fierce accountability. From who? Everyone you can think of. In particular, accountability that they do their jobs right, make the right choices, charge fair prices, treat employees well, treat society and the earth well, etc.
honestly, getting the mass public to care about these factors feels more ideological than the "Money as skin" solution. Government regulations are about as close as we get. we're still a ways off from that, though.
they bury their own lede at the end but they elaborate on it:
> Shame as "Skin"
Japan is (in)famous for this. Honestly, read this section yourself, it's a very interesting (but IMO, not necessarily "productive") way to conduct business via aggressive risk-aversion.
>Stigma as "Skin"
used Germany as an example, but it's the dead obvious solution. If you screwed up, of course you should be less trusted in future endeavors. Especially if you were doing illegal stuff.
>Money as “Skin”
the more ideological solution that's more of a daydream than any real system.
- CEO pays part of their net worth to the company and should earn it back via success - Salary is capped at X times the lowest paid employee - no Golden Parachute if you burn the company to the ground.
>Better than that is fierce accountability. From who? Everyone you can think of. In particular, accountability that they do their jobs right, make the right choices, charge fair prices, treat employees well, treat society and the earth well, etc.
honestly, getting the mass public to care about these factors feels more ideological than the "Money as skin" solution. Government regulations are about as close as we get. we're still a ways off from that, though.
I don't think any of those are going to ever work in America. America has practically perfected "pretending like something you should feel bad about never happened".
Anyway, any form of accountability that takes the form of "the person hopefully acts better" is not scalable. The only thing that is sustainable is a system by which the external world can hold the person accountable, by something approximating force: either the ability to compel them to change their behavior, evict them from the enterprise, garnish their profits, or arrest them.
Anyway, any form of accountability that takes the form of "the person hopefully acts better" is not scalable. The only thing that is sustainable is a system by which the external world can hold the person accountable, by something approximating force: either the ability to compel them to change their behavior, evict them from the enterprise, garnish their profits, or arrest them.
>any form of accountability that takes the form of "the person hopefully acts better" is not scalable.
To be fair it does scale in other societies. I think the question we should be asking isn't "why does it work there" and instead "why DOESN'T it work in the US?".
Maybe it's just because the US economy has been strong for some 80 years and the individualistic culture used that position to invest in any and everything that could possibly be "the next big thing". Ideas (and clout) over anything else.
To be fair it does scale in other societies. I think the question we should be asking isn't "why does it work there" and instead "why DOESN'T it work in the US?".
Maybe it's just because the US economy has been strong for some 80 years and the individualistic culture used that position to invest in any and everything that could possibly be "the next big thing". Ideas (and clout) over anything else.
> There are countless stories of people inheriting things and ruining them because they don't have the acumen of the original creator.
There absolutely are. "Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations" is an old saying about how the kids ruin it.
Can you find us some stories of NON-family companies that have lasted more than 200 years? I've looked into this, and there are a couple. But virtually all the very old companies are family-run.
There absolutely are. "Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations" is an old saying about how the kids ruin it.
Can you find us some stories of NON-family companies that have lasted more than 200 years? I've looked into this, and there are a couple. But virtually all the very old companies are family-run.
The interesting example would be "multinational conglomerates that are family-run", since obviously the dynamics of a large business are very different from those of a small one.
> The interesting example would be "multinational conglomerates that are family-run"
That's begging the question, literally. You're assuming something that guarantees your side of the argument.
There is no reason why a company has to become a multinational conglomerate.
That's begging the question, literally. You're assuming something that guarantees your side of the argument.
There is no reason why a company has to become a multinational conglomerate.
> There are countless stories of people inheriting things and ruining them because they don't have the acumen of the original creator.
Some of my most "entertaining" work experiences have been a direct result of this. In the latest example, the son of the founder went so far as to create a motorcycle dealership on the property of his completely unrelated inherited business in the parking lot of their HQ location because he was more interested in motorcycles than the business he inherited. This is a relatively small family company ($250MM/year net) that also has multiple private jets for the C-Suite of friends of the inheritor to ride around in. One of the most moral crushing experiences is when everyone sees the direction a company is taking, but we all still go through the steps we all know will be futile regardless because the money all spends the same in the end.
Some of my most "entertaining" work experiences have been a direct result of this. In the latest example, the son of the founder went so far as to create a motorcycle dealership on the property of his completely unrelated inherited business in the parking lot of their HQ location because he was more interested in motorcycles than the business he inherited. This is a relatively small family company ($250MM/year net) that also has multiple private jets for the C-Suite of friends of the inheritor to ride around in. One of the most moral crushing experiences is when everyone sees the direction a company is taking, but we all still go through the steps we all know will be futile regardless because the money all spends the same in the end.
The problem is that in the current era, we only look at short term profits and losses, which makes it difficult to evaluate competency.
The comparison of CEO vs Owner/Founder/Guy with the name on the company, should be looked from the short/long term benefits to the company. A lot of CEOs are compensated based on stock value and quarterly results, which can be gamed quite easily. You can improve profit margins if you fire half your staff, but will that ensure your company lasts a decade? Probably not. Once you take a long term view, you can align the incentives that way, and automatically ensure the CEOs have more skin in the game. E.g. instead of $3M joining bonus, move it to a bonus if you’re still a CEO after 3 years.
The comparison of CEO vs Owner/Founder/Guy with the name on the company, should be looked from the short/long term benefits to the company. A lot of CEOs are compensated based on stock value and quarterly results, which can be gamed quite easily. You can improve profit margins if you fire half your staff, but will that ensure your company lasts a decade? Probably not. Once you take a long term view, you can align the incentives that way, and automatically ensure the CEOs have more skin in the game. E.g. instead of $3M joining bonus, move it to a bonus if you’re still a CEO after 3 years.
Most CEO have stock options so in theory they have skin in the game. This however does not make them rational or competent actors. Maybe skin in the game isn't all that it is being made out to be, it is probably necessary but not sufficient to be a effective business leader. Honestly this article feels strangely malicious, I would not call the execution of more then 300 soviet officers an example of skin in the game, but just cruel intimidation by Stalin.
The “skin” is not related to the value of the product they deliver or the happiness of the employees or the long term viability of the company. So it can hardly be valuable “skin”.
Particularly as Stalin himself wilfully ignored intelligence about the imminent Operation Barbarossa, for example from the agent Richard Sorge.
And he executed hundreds of capable officers in the 1930s, replacing them with incompetent yes-men, which greatly degraded Soviet defences.
In Western corporate terms, Stalin would be a boss who carried out mass layoffs of his most competent employees, ignored the threat of a competitor, and only survived due to the hard work and sacrifice of his remaining underlings, while taking credit for their work. All in all, he'd probably be quite a good modern American CEO.
And he executed hundreds of capable officers in the 1930s, replacing them with incompetent yes-men, which greatly degraded Soviet defences.
In Western corporate terms, Stalin would be a boss who carried out mass layoffs of his most competent employees, ignored the threat of a competitor, and only survived due to the hard work and sacrifice of his remaining underlings, while taking credit for their work. All in all, he'd probably be quite a good modern American CEO.
The other side of this argument is that if CEOs are exposed to high personal risks, they manage very conservatively. That's when companies get left behind change. Consider Kodak.
Relatedly—I’ve been thinking on this—I’d like to introduce (if no one else has already?) a term in the spirit of “marginal utility of income”:
Marginal reality of risk.
Big shot CEO’s bad outcome if they get fired for doing a terrible job is they are still rich. Assuming they’re not outright criminals, and also happen to get caught and punished for that, anyway.
Is Musk doomed to get whatever normal 9-5 job he can land if things go so horribly with his investments and endeavors that he loses everything? No. No matter what, he’ll never again work a real job if he doesn’t want to. His fame/infamy is bankable enough he’ll never need a real job to make decent money. He’ll live well and his kids will go to fancy prep schools and all that. His worst likely case (short of, like, going to prison—talking pure risk to his finances) is better than the best likely outcome for nearly everyone else in the world.
The marginal reality of risk, above a certain level, approaches zero. The numbers are big, but the risk is a fantasy. The average poor immigrant is taking more real risk than any of these people do, sometimes in their whole lives, every day. Even the average pampered software developer does.
Marginal reality of risk.
Big shot CEO’s bad outcome if they get fired for doing a terrible job is they are still rich. Assuming they’re not outright criminals, and also happen to get caught and punished for that, anyway.
Is Musk doomed to get whatever normal 9-5 job he can land if things go so horribly with his investments and endeavors that he loses everything? No. No matter what, he’ll never again work a real job if he doesn’t want to. His fame/infamy is bankable enough he’ll never need a real job to make decent money. He’ll live well and his kids will go to fancy prep schools and all that. His worst likely case (short of, like, going to prison—talking pure risk to his finances) is better than the best likely outcome for nearly everyone else in the world.
The marginal reality of risk, above a certain level, approaches zero. The numbers are big, but the risk is a fantasy. The average poor immigrant is taking more real risk than any of these people do, sometimes in their whole lives, every day. Even the average pampered software developer does.
Absolutely agree with this. Real skin in the game would require CEOs and executives to face ruin in the event of failure.
Pilots have skin in the game. There is rarely any doubt that their priority is landing that plane safely. Now imagine a world where airline pilots are able to safely eject with a golden parachute and minimal damage to their professional reputation. What are the chances of achieving the same safety record?
Pilots have skin in the game. There is rarely any doubt that their priority is landing that plane safely. Now imagine a world where airline pilots are able to safely eject with a golden parachute and minimal damage to their professional reputation. What are the chances of achieving the same safety record?
His closing comment might be one approach: force upper management to make a substantial, long-term investment in the company.
An alternate approach would be regulation: outlawing outsized compensation. If the top dog really did only earn 50x the janitor's salary, we could eliminate an entire class of parasite.
A third approach would require cultural change. Regard managers as necessary but low-status. The people doing the actual work of the company should be held in higher regard - and earn more - than the paper shufflers.
An alternate approach would be regulation: outlawing outsized compensation. If the top dog really did only earn 50x the janitor's salary, we could eliminate an entire class of parasite.
A third approach would require cultural change. Regard managers as necessary but low-status. The people doing the actual work of the company should be held in higher regard - and earn more - than the paper shufflers.
The Mars trilogy offered a few very interesting ideas of economics. Since its a new place people are free to experiment with newer more radical power structures and economic approaches.
What the author proposed and explored was a mandatory investment the compony you work for. E.g there are no employees at all just shareholders, and the minimum share you can have is regulated, thus limiting the size and structure of any organization.
To be “employed” you have to buy into the company. Since you have advance automation in the universe of the books it seemed actually possible.
All fascinating ideas, their implications, upsides and downsides were explored in the trilogy.
And I’ve wondered since, can this be a solution to a lot of our current woes, with automation looming as a potential societal issue as well?
What the author proposed and explored was a mandatory investment the compony you work for. E.g there are no employees at all just shareholders, and the minimum share you can have is regulated, thus limiting the size and structure of any organization.
To be “employed” you have to buy into the company. Since you have advance automation in the universe of the books it seemed actually possible.
All fascinating ideas, their implications, upsides and downsides were explored in the trilogy.
And I’ve wondered since, can this be a solution to a lot of our current woes, with automation looming as a potential societal issue as well?
How can you outlaw paying more than 50x to a CEO? Aside from the blatant government overreach, how would you even make it work? What if the equity ends up being worth more than that? If you solve that by not paying in equity, but only cash, now you have an even bigger incentive alignment problem.
>How can you outlaw paying more than 50x to a CEO?
Through congress? There's nothing in the constitution against wages at all.
>What if the equity ends up being worth more than that? If you solve that by not paying in equity, but only cash, now you have an even bigger incentive alignment problem.
These people spend years undermining the working class and finding all sort of financial loopholes, I'm sure they can take non-cash benefits into account when drafting such a law. I don't think they will actually do so, but it's far from the realm of impossibility.
e.g. for equity: you set a similar cap on RSUs and require all full time employees to get a certain amount. a CEO can hold no more than X times the amount of RSUs as your lowest paid employee and a portion of gains in RSUs are pooled into some other system to distribute per year as an end of year bonus (remember when that was the norm?).
It's not perfect and I see two obvious holes here (contractors and part time workers), but this is from 5 minutes of brainstorming from a non-economics expert.
Through congress? There's nothing in the constitution against wages at all.
>What if the equity ends up being worth more than that? If you solve that by not paying in equity, but only cash, now you have an even bigger incentive alignment problem.
These people spend years undermining the working class and finding all sort of financial loopholes, I'm sure they can take non-cash benefits into account when drafting such a law. I don't think they will actually do so, but it's far from the realm of impossibility.
e.g. for equity: you set a similar cap on RSUs and require all full time employees to get a certain amount. a CEO can hold no more than X times the amount of RSUs as your lowest paid employee and a portion of gains in RSUs are pooled into some other system to distribute per year as an end of year bonus (remember when that was the norm?).
It's not perfect and I see two obvious holes here (contractors and part time workers), but this is from 5 minutes of brainstorming from a non-economics expert.
The lowest paid employees get no less than 1/50th of the CEO’s allocation.
Would investors really want substantial downside for CEOs? Over the past two decades, they have demanded more risk and more growth and rewarded doing anything to grow quickly.
And for those investors who took the biggest risks and demanded the most growth and boldness, the tech venture capitalists (who endorsed crazy growth strategies and paid valuations everyone else thought were insane), there have been tremendous rewards.
VCs are pretty open about wanting to back 50 companies and knowing that 45 will go to zero, 5 will make a bit of money, and 1 will make so much money as to make the rest forgettable. But they need all chasing that mega exit for it all to work out.
Add in that America is by far the best major market for generating investor return at the moment and a lot of it is that the American market embraces risk in a way that no others do.
There are VCs on this board. Would you want your founders to be sent to sell timeshares if their startups failed?
And for those investors who took the biggest risks and demanded the most growth and boldness, the tech venture capitalists (who endorsed crazy growth strategies and paid valuations everyone else thought were insane), there have been tremendous rewards.
VCs are pretty open about wanting to back 50 companies and knowing that 45 will go to zero, 5 will make a bit of money, and 1 will make so much money as to make the rest forgettable. But they need all chasing that mega exit for it all to work out.
Add in that America is by far the best major market for generating investor return at the moment and a lot of it is that the American market embraces risk in a way that no others do.
There are VCs on this board. Would you want your founders to be sent to sell timeshares if their startups failed?
There are two main reasons for giving employees stock options and one of them is precisely the idea of creating "skin in the game". The author provides examples of CEOs whose stock options amount to millions of dollars after they are fired. So the author complains that CEOs don't have skin in the game and demonstrates this by explaining how the skin they have in the game makes them extremely wealthy.
Sometimes, the incentives from "skin in the game" lead to perverse business decisions. Want to drive a stock price up? Fire 50% of the employees and show that your earnings per employee increased 75%. Nevermind that those numbers indicate that your earnings decreased dramatically. Your _profit_ increased substantially in the first six months after the layoffs. The value of the CEO's shares goes up, and the skin they have in the game makes them a lot of money. The stock doesn't correct as quickly as CEOs come and go. Even in the example of HP's big one-day jump after Fiorina left.
As for family run businesses, most of the the TV references were over my head. I haven't watched any of those shows. But I can offer an age-old story I am familiar with. It often goes by the name of "The Prodigal Son". It defies almost all of the author's reasoning.
Sometimes, the incentives from "skin in the game" lead to perverse business decisions. Want to drive a stock price up? Fire 50% of the employees and show that your earnings per employee increased 75%. Nevermind that those numbers indicate that your earnings decreased dramatically. Your _profit_ increased substantially in the first six months after the layoffs. The value of the CEO's shares goes up, and the skin they have in the game makes them a lot of money. The stock doesn't correct as quickly as CEOs come and go. Even in the example of HP's big one-day jump after Fiorina left.
As for family run businesses, most of the the TV references were over my head. I haven't watched any of those shows. But I can offer an age-old story I am familiar with. It often goes by the name of "The Prodigal Son". It defies almost all of the author's reasoning.
We seem to go in a circle:
CEOs “don’t have skin in the game” —> more share based comp —> Stock does well. Decry excessive CEO comp —> Depeg ceo pay from stock —> repeat
Any competent hiring committee would see someone that's experienced failure as a good hire, any fool can manage a great product to a bit more success, but understanding why things fail and being able to make tough decisions is priceless.
This is why traders/bankers who have lost fortunes (even fraudulently) usually land on their feet.
For every CEO or professional manager who didn't have "skin in the game" and failed there a probably 100's of incompetent children who drive a family business into the ground and manager owned businesses working at subsistance levels.
This is why traders/bankers who have lost fortunes (even fraudulently) usually land on their feet.
For every CEO or professional manager who didn't have "skin in the game" and failed there a probably 100's of incompetent children who drive a family business into the ground and manager owned businesses working at subsistance levels.
Your last point is surely salient. But your first point is not.
If I have a choice between a ceo who’s run 5 companies and 4 of them well vs one that’s run 5 companies and 1 of them well, I don’t really want the one who’s “learned a lot.”
If I have a choice between a ceo who’s run 5 companies and 4 of them well vs one that’s run 5 companies and 1 of them well, I don’t really want the one who’s “learned a lot.”
> If I have a choice between a ceo who’s run 5 companies and 4 of them well vs one that’s run 5 companies and 1 of them well
Sure, but the likelyhood is that you'll have candidates that have a few senior positions and been CEO once or twice before. In that case one that's failed building a new company/product is no worse than someone that has been the CEO of an established company for a few years and it hasn't gone bust.
EDIT: I didn't mean to say that a failed CEO was better than a successful one - just that being a failed CEO won't bar you from being employed again, for good reason.
Sure, but the likelyhood is that you'll have candidates that have a few senior positions and been CEO once or twice before. In that case one that's failed building a new company/product is no worse than someone that has been the CEO of an established company for a few years and it hasn't gone bust.
EDIT: I didn't mean to say that a failed CEO was better than a successful one - just that being a failed CEO won't bar you from being employed again, for good reason.
It's not just about tying the success of the company to the success of the CEO.
It's about tying criminal responsibility to the CEO and the board. When the company commits a crime, the corporation doesn't go to jail. Instead the corporation pays a fine.
Thus in this sense the company barely loses anything and the CEO and board typically doesn't lose much.
I say fuck that. Throw the CEO or the board into jail. That will end some of the criminal negligence we see from corporations today. You do shit like this, you associate acts of evil, acts of crime with the names of board members and CEO's you will fix a lot of shit. A lot.
It's about tying criminal responsibility to the CEO and the board. When the company commits a crime, the corporation doesn't go to jail. Instead the corporation pays a fine.
Thus in this sense the company barely loses anything and the CEO and board typically doesn't lose much.
I say fuck that. Throw the CEO or the board into jail. That will end some of the criminal negligence we see from corporations today. You do shit like this, you associate acts of evil, acts of crime with the names of board members and CEO's you will fix a lot of shit. A lot.
Here's a thought to add to the discussion. What are the consequences to the person or persons who hired the disastrous CEO? What if the CEO's severance benefits were paid out of the combined compensation of the people who gave that CEO those benefits? What skin do they have in the game?
There is some idea that nobody getting paid $200,000/year could possibly be qualified to run a $billion company. There are plenty of people making less than that who think they are qualified. But they've never done it. To reach the top you have to work through multiple levels of management. Each of those levels comes with a pay bump. So you make $80K, then $120K, then $180K, then $300K before you can even be considered for the $800K job. This leads to the obvious miscalculation that anybody who has made $800K in the past is a qualified exec. Even assuming that a person was a competent manager at the $180K level or the $400K level, you still have to recognize how often the Peter Principle holds true.
There is some idea that nobody getting paid $200,000/year could possibly be qualified to run a $billion company. There are plenty of people making less than that who think they are qualified. But they've never done it. To reach the top you have to work through multiple levels of management. Each of those levels comes with a pay bump. So you make $80K, then $120K, then $180K, then $300K before you can even be considered for the $800K job. This leads to the obvious miscalculation that anybody who has made $800K in the past is a qualified exec. Even assuming that a person was a competent manager at the $180K level or the $400K level, you still have to recognize how often the Peter Principle holds true.
You can't have worse example than Japan for managment.
They're whole auto industry is currently in jeopardy because of short term risk aversion and being too slow to move into EV segment.
1. Stock options aren't long-term enough – a CEO can make a series of decisions which increase profits and therefore increase stock price in the short-term, but completely hamstring the long-term viability of a company. Doesn't matter though, the CEO already made their bag and moved on.
2. Even when the chickens come home to roost when the CEO is still there, the market is not properly punishing underperforming CEOs. For whatever reason (I have a number of theories), a CEO can do an objectively poor job, leave their current position, and then somehow end up at a different company in a similar position of power not long after. You have to do a really, truly terrible job and even then you might not be out (just look at Adam Neumann).
3. Comp is so high these days (because the multinational corps have gotten so big even when the number of CEOs per company mostly has remained at 1) that even if you do somehow (a) torpedo your stock options and (b) become unemployable, you were probably making enough that you can live out your days very comfortably if necessary.