Making money isn't about making the best product. Commodore proved that. It is about getting people to give you money... So yeah, maybe they are worth it.
It really depends on the company. It sounds like you were working at a B2B/enterprise company? But yeah, getting new business and/or funding is often a big part of the job. It doesn't meant they don't also make decisions - but I guess the bigger the company the fewer different roles the CEO is filling.
Schmooze is a bit of a demeaning word, isn't it? If the CEO is learning from customers and helping the organization react accordingly, that sounds very valuable.
But if schmoozing means their company gets a new big customer or their stock price goes up, they have provided value I guess. It's just not from what we consider "real" work.
That kind of demonstrates the importance and value of a good CEO though. A couple dumb decisions by an assembly worker won't kill a company. A few bad decisions by a CEO can.
> That kind of demonstrates the importance and value of a good CEO though. A couple dumb decisions by an assembly worker won't kill a company. A few bad decisions by a CEO can.
A few dumb (or malicious) decisions by an assembly worker can cause enormous damage and incur enormous cost.
I think most job salaries can be linked directly to how much of a difference the employee can make. A complete dud at McDonalds in the kitchen might cost a few thousand on average but the further you go up, the greater the damage or benefit potential gets.
David Graeber, of Bullshit Jobs fame, makes the distinction between service work and caring work. Doing things vs taking care of other humans.
Part of his thesis is that society undervalues the labor of caring workers, because they get so much "job satisfaction". Teachers and nurses are examples of caring work.
I lean towards Graeber's thesis, mostly because I haven't read any other explanation for this pathology, so Graeber wins by default.
Except the bad CEO still gets a big salary, and a golden parachute when he leaves the sinking ship of the company he killed. And then proceed to get hired as CEO for the next company.
The effects of a CEO is often lagging. If an assembly line worker stops working, you see the results immediately. If a CEO stops working or does something very negative, you might see the effects years later.
You'd think that losing key staff would kill the company overnight, but even in this situation, it took 4 years between being doomed and actually dying.