| HN Mirror

> The CEO's work is still more consequential, however.

Ah, I don't know about that. In the end what CEOs get payed for is to have someone to blame in case anything goes wrong. medicore performance never got a CEO fired, it's just when something goes terribly wrong that they have to take their hats.

Usually there's a golden parachute attached.

CEOs are overrated.

No. CEOs make important decisions about how a company is run and its future. Some companies might share responsibilities differently.

> CEOs make important decisions about how a company is run and its future.

I've yet to work in a (large) company where the CEO is actually relevant. Most of the decisions happen at lower, departmental levels.

In the initial years, CEOs can make or break a company, but after that it's pretty random. You can have a brilliant CEO that just gets stumped and the company goes bust. Or you can have an incompetent CEO that just stumbles from success to success.

In my experience, CEOs get hired because of their old-boys networks that will allow the company to participate to the pay-to-play games with e.g. financial institutes or similar industry handshake-wink-wink-partnerships. They know people that know people, that's it.

If the board is incompetent, then the CEO will usually be incompetent too. A CEO doesn't make every decision for the company, just the important ones. A new CEO has great impact on a company's present and future unless the company is already organized to give /other executives/ most of his or her responsibilities.

At the companies I've worked at, lower levels never make far-reaching decisions for the company.

In all the companies I've worked at, never has a CEO made a decision that made a company successful. The best thing a CEO can do when it comes to decisions that make a company successful is one thing; recognize good ideas and get the hell out of the way of the people implementing that decision.

That's what incompetent CEOs usually do; they get in the way of competent people doing a heck of a job.

Good CEOs know that they are figureheads and try to stay out of the crucial decision making, handing off responsibilities to people that actually know what they are doing.

> In all the companies I've worked at, never has a CEO made a decision that made a company successful.

Hasn't been the case for me. Even if they didn't come up with, say, a market strategy, they're important in executing it. They lead rather than getting the hell out of the way.

>Good CEOs know that they are figureheads and try to stay out of the crucial decision making, handing off responsibilities to people that actually know what they are doing.

A good CEO makes critical decisions. Handing off responsibilities if they know their limits is indeed part of being a good CEO.

gameman144 1687 days ago

Is this a case where you know what the CEO does day-to-day and don't find it relevant? Or that you're not sure what the CEO spends their time doing?

I know what they spend their time with; golfing and making sure their friends get a cut of the pay by doling out company contracts. Just as they get a delicious cut from their friends companies' contracts.

afroboy 1688 days ago

So you telling me if the people where united in a way that they will organize a strike against a specific company, that company will no longer exist? So workers does matter they just have to adapt to the mentality of strikes.

The average worker (singular) does not matter, but they can organise to make demands. You didn't add anything new.

Isn't that just what CEOs do? Not add anything new?

No. CEOs are responsible for strategy, policy, and organisation. One CEO can make or break a company, one worker can't.

> No. CEOs are responsible for strategy, policy, and organisation.

I doubt that. In larger companies - the ones that actually have a CEO and not just a very hard working company owner - CEOs are usually pretty much isolated from any strategy, policy or organisation. For that they have upper management.

> One CEO

alone can do shit. A successful company needs competent workers, the right ideas from engineers and artists, diligent bureaucrats and most of all; a hell a lot of luck.

Given all that, even a company with a mediocre CEO can be vastly successful.

CEOs are mostly there for the handshakes and because they know people that know people. That's about it.

CEOs are very involved in strategy, especially when a company is going through a transition. A CEO that can properly navigate the business world through 'handshakes' is important too. Boards pay them lots for a reason. A good CEO is much harder to replace than a few engineers.