[dwoozle]

This is highly rational behavior for hired CEOs — you’re there for 5-10 years and paid based on stock price, so it’s in your best interest to sell shoddy products under the venerable brand name in the highest quantities possible, and cash out before the market discovers that your brand name is worthless (cf all of the venerable kitchen brands like All-Clad and Wusthof that now have Chinese junk lines).

This is why the father to son family business model may prove more enduring.

[reaperducer]

All the CEO's care about is next quarter. Five or ten years isn't even on the radar at most companies anymore.

[alasdair_]

>All the CEO's care about is next quarter. Five or ten years isn't even on the radar at most companies anymore.

If their comp package is weighted towards the five year term, they absolutely care about five years from now.

[rubyn00bie]

I doubt any CEO's compensation is tied to anything beyond five years; and, I bet even terms at five years are sparse limited to a few giant names who have to (like Tim Cook) otherwise the stock price would collapse and that's it.

I'd like to add: there is no incentive for it either, shareholders want returns NOW, and so they want CEOs to act in their interest NOW. Most shareholders aren't looking at their "ownership" stake with compassion for employees at the company, or any form of responsibility to other stakeholders, but solely for their own bottom line.

[alasdair_]

>there is no incentive for it either, shareholders want returns NOW, and so they want CEOs to act in their interest NOW.

Many of the biggest shareholders are major pension funds with 30 to 50 year time horizons. They absolutely do NOT want "returns NOW" with the implicit assumption that future quarters don't matter.

[goatinaboat]

They absolutely do NOT want "returns NOW" with the implicit assumption that future quarters don't matter.

That is true but it is also true that they can’t risk waiting 30 years only to find their investment is worthless. Hence the insistence on quarterly reporting.

[redblacktree]

> shareholders want returns NOW

I know this is the received wisdom, but as a shareholder, I emphatically do not want this. I want long-term value, as I am a long-term investor. I hate that I have to watch out for shady things like this and adjust my holdings accordingly.

[dwoozle]

Yeah, they trash the brand for a few quarters of returns and ride off into the sunset.

[burkaman]

I always thought this was a weird definition of "rational". If you're already rich, which I assume most hired CEOs are, why is prioritizing money over people a more rational decision? Is that money going to change their life in any meaningful way? Is it any less correct to say it's in their best interest to stop working as soon as they have enough money to live comfortably for the rest of their life, to minimize stress and maximize lifetime?

I understand that it's rational behavior for someone driven exclusively by money, but that's an important qualification. Most people are not money robots, so they aren't given these jobs.

[orclev]

It's the corporate structure. The CEO either grows the year over year profits or he gets punished/fired by the board. Boards pick CEOs based on a history of delivering growth at any cost (this is one of the irrational decisions, they should prioritize long term growth over short term, but they rarely do). This in turn provides a strong incentive to CEOs to make bad long term decisions if it means short term gains, because they either won't be around to see the eventual collapse (having moved on to another CEO position) or else they take the long term plan and get fired by the board for not providing enough growth (or worse, reduction).

[burkaman]

> strong incentive

But it shouldn't be a strong incentive, right? Getting fired from a CEO position is fine, you're almost certainly set for life. I understand this is sort of a circular argument, because anyone who doesn't buy into this incentive structure won't be hired as CEO, but my point is that somebody who is willing to go along with this system isn't really behaving rationally in the normal sense of the word.

[bsder]

> If you're already rich, which I assume most hired CEOs are, why is prioritizing money over people a more rational decision?

Generally, a non-founder CEO is a ferociously competitive person--probably to the point of being pathological. They often "play poker" in situations where there is very little upside to doing so.

Great salespeople are often the same way, they simply can't turn it off.

You are asking a leopard to change his spots after he has started eating the antelope.

[burkaman]

I understand, I just don't think we should describe that behavior as "rational". In casual conversation, the word means "sensible, logic-driven decisions that any person with good judgement would take". Here we're describing behavior driven by a particular niche, unnatural rationale, and pretty much any behavior can be explained that way.

[soledades]

> pathological

That was precisely the parent comment's point.

[ajnin]

I really dislike this kind of reasoning. Saying this is "highly rational" is saying the only value is money. Everything else can be set aside if it leads to more money. Even if people get hurt or worse using shoddy equipment. There is no place for empathy, at a sociopathic level. I'd think that a few millennia of civilization would give more value to notions of altruism, honesty, not constantly trying to scam your fellow man.

[_jal]

It is "highly rational" in the sense that success at their chosen career means hitting financial targets defined over short time periods.

The behavior won't change until the incentives do.

[ip26]

Yes, but we already know these positions tend to select for mildly sociopathic behavior in the first place...

[jschwartzi]

This is a sort of "Ayn Rand'ian" rationality in which the only thing that matters is what you're getting out of the deal independently of how devoid of empathy your worldview is.