[edanm]

Firstly (and maybe flippantly?), net contribution of 0 is not necessarily bad - you're forgetting that a lot of CEOs could've destroyed value. E.g. arguably a few of Uber's actions have destroyed value, tons of companies effectively close, etc.

Secondly, I think net contribution of 0 isn't really accurate - there were a lot of actions that were taken to get more money out of the Alibaba shares, e.g. ways to mitigate the tax burden, and as alluded to by someone else in the thread (and in the article), finding an executive that helped undo (?) a deal that would've forced Yahoo to sell more Alibaba shares.

Lastly, even if all of the above is true, CEOs in large part take strategic bets. It's easy to look back and say that all the bets failed, but that doesn't make taking them the wrong move.