[rgifford]

Lack of corporate regulation and labor organization have led to a real asymmetrical arrangement for workers. It's a classic power imbalance. CEO-to-worker pay is at its highest level in 100 years [1]. Seems to me senior corporate leadership and founders are basically full of it. If scientific discovery is subject to multiple discovery, leadership just can't be a unique skill and founding a company just can't be a unique occurrence [2]. I'm confident there are 1000s of qualified folks capable of outperforming senior leadership in any position at any fortune 500. I'm confident if it wasn't Tesla, it would've been another American electric car company 6 months later. Buuut do we pay CEOs or founders as though they're replaceable? They play golf with board members and send their kids to summer camp together. They're dilettantes, hucksters, shmucks, dorks. For example, I'm always amazed when this type holds an all hands to discuss company culture un-ironically. As though leadership principles or company values or whatever pseudo-religious structure they divined might actually take us in? How can you even respect yourself? I suppose the pragmatic, sociopathic voice in my head might justify it: "If they can see this as more than work, I can extract more from them. If they can see me as more than another person fumbling around in the dark, I can elevate myself above them." I just couldn't live with the constant lying to myself.

Always makes me chuckle when folks blather on about risk-reward premiums while relying on public infrastructure -- postal service, education, military, internet, rail system, roads, power grids, democracy, freeways, bridges, etc. Start or run your business in war torn Afghanistan and I'm happy to talk about 400:1 pay ratios between leadership and lowest paid employees. No? Alright then. Sit down, shut up, and just be happy folks aren't pulling out the pitchforks... yet.

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/261463/ceo-to-worker-com...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery