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raydiatian | 2 years ago

If a rocket company CEO can be replaced by an e-tail company exec, what do CEOs do that warrant such high earnings again

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SilverBirch|2 years ago

There a few snarky answers to your question but the real answer is simple: what CEOs do is extremely hard, they don't just need to build a rocket, they need to build a 1,000 person team capable of producing rockets. Despite what some people may think there's no 1 person who has all the knowledge required to put a rocket into space, so the CEO is responsible for bringing all that knowledge together. Take a look at the flip-side - this bad CEO has been basically fired, how many billions of dollars do you think he cost Bezos through his failure? Would you have paid someone twice his salary if you thought they could do better?

throw9away6|2 years ago

Yeah a good ceo would have saved a ton of money but where are you going to find one? It’s not like the system produces people who effectively quash toxic managing culture. More than likely the system and incentives actually promote the most toxic folks to the top. You would probably have equal or better results by promoting a promising mid level leader that’s still in touch with the group floor reality.

feoren|2 years ago

> what CEOs do is extremely hard, they don't just need to build a rocket, they need to build a 1,000 person team capable of producing rockets

Maybe you could argue this is what they should be doing, but it's clearly not what they are doing. The vast majority of CEOs simply suck some of the blood out of the company before flying off an parasitizing another one. You say the other answers are snarky; I say yours is naive.

> Would you have paid someone twice his salary if you thought they could do better?

No, I would have paid a random engineer who didn't want the job 1/10th of the CEO's salary and gotten a TREMENDOUSLY better outcome.

geodel|2 years ago

Nothing much really. It is just they know a guy personally who can pay their high salary. If you know also someone like that just go get your high earning.

mensetmanusman|2 years ago

They remind us that we are all gorillas more quickly than others.

nico|2 years ago

They network very effectively with other high net worth people