This is one of those cultural transitions which is difficult for people on the other side to understand; it belongs to the forgotten era of personal honor. These days one would simply lie on TV, or hire a PR firm to do that for you, and of course put the blame on the lowest individual that can be found. Repeat when more mistakes are made, because low level employees are disposable accountability shields. (See, for example, the UK post office/Fujitsu Horizon scandal)
But it used to be the case that leaders were expected to take responsibility for the culture and systems underneath them, rather than just taking as much of a salary as the business will bear from it.
That is, if a low level employee makes a significant money-handling mistake on this scale, that's a systems failure. There should be checks and testing and a software development culture which makes this kind of error unlikely. This is what was lost with "move fast and break things". After all, it's only other people's money.
(edit: it seems not to have been an actual money-handling error, but a notification error. Still fairly serious in terms of angry customers)
In the public enquiry for the Horizon scandal we saw a pattern that happens over and over where extremely well paid and supposedly high performing executives suddenly remember they were idiots and had no idea about anything so it's not their fault.
I believe we should impose a statutory burden on boards for such outfits to establish that their executives are not idiots, so that when inevitably this happens again the executive is obliged to agree either they are an idiot who couldn't have known they were doing awful things but, they also lied over and over in this mandatory paperwork - and so they go to jail for lying, or, they weren't an idiot after all, they're guilty.
We use this same approach for drink driving here. You can let us take the sample, proving you were hopelessly drunk, then you get banned for drink driving, or, you can refuse the sample, we can't prove you were drunk but you refused and the same penalty applies for refusal.
I'm sure some people will protest - why should I have to put myself at jeopardy, surely I should be allowed to do crimes without consequence? OK, well lets try it out, if every CEO job goes vacant once such a rule comes into effect I guess we'll have discovered every single one of you is a crook, which is good to know. But I suspect instead we'll have no trouble finding candidates and this was simply mispriced - we won't fix the criminality but now those responsible will sometimes end up behind bars at least.
Simplified, but if CEO's want to make the big bucks when their developers create some great new feature, they should also stop making the big bucks (resign) when their developers mess up.
But here the CEO resigned with six months extra pay from the day she leaves, which is in six months from now. so she'll have six months where she's still employed, and paid normally, to search for a new job. Which she should be able to find without problems in that time frame. She'll still receive an additional six months of pay after that, not something most people (i.e. normal people) could hope for.
Because CEOs should take responsibility for the public errors of companies? If they had had proper testing procedures in place, this mistake would have been caught long before it reached the public. Clearly they did not, and the buck stops at the CEO.
> “It is during this conversion that a manual error has been made in the code that is entered into our game engine,” the company said in a statement. “The amount has been multiplied by 100, instead of being divided by 100.”
That sounds like a problem a CEO should lead the charge to address, not resign from. I wonder if there are still deep issues.
I've always thought leaders resigning in the face of a problem, were doing a greater disservice. Bit of a cop out. Kind of like "Yeah I made a mess, but anyway - bye".
That's when you need to rise to it and resolve the problem. 'Accepting' responsibility might please hordes of blame seekers, but it's immature and short sighted. Resolving whatever the problem is would better serve the situation.
The article mentions – but does not elaborate – that this is not the first time the company have been scrutinised publicly. The fact that it had to attend a meeting with the ministry on a Saturday suggests the severity it was considered by the government. So I am pretty confident, that it was the minister who decided – during that meeting – that she had to resign. Heads must roll, as they say.
Kind of a ansilary question. Why are CEOs paid so handsomely if they dont't assume any risk for what their company does?
You wanna be in charge? You want to apply pressure that pushes for growth over quality? You're responsible.
We seem to live in a world where CEOs are considered both gurus heroically pulling their company along and blamelesz victims of the wills of the organization whenever there's a failure. They get the best of both worlds, compensated like the first and treated like the second between gigs.
That's a rather limited view of the responsibilities of the leader of a company. A CEO must ensure a company works properly. It's a bit of a Wall Street view: I'll have the money without the responsibilities, please.
pjc50|8 months ago
But it used to be the case that leaders were expected to take responsibility for the culture and systems underneath them, rather than just taking as much of a salary as the business will bear from it.
That is, if a low level employee makes a significant money-handling mistake on this scale, that's a systems failure. There should be checks and testing and a software development culture which makes this kind of error unlikely. This is what was lost with "move fast and break things". After all, it's only other people's money.
(edit: it seems not to have been an actual money-handling error, but a notification error. Still fairly serious in terms of angry customers)
tialaramex|8 months ago
I believe we should impose a statutory burden on boards for such outfits to establish that their executives are not idiots, so that when inevitably this happens again the executive is obliged to agree either they are an idiot who couldn't have known they were doing awful things but, they also lied over and over in this mandatory paperwork - and so they go to jail for lying, or, they weren't an idiot after all, they're guilty.
We use this same approach for drink driving here. You can let us take the sample, proving you were hopelessly drunk, then you get banned for drink driving, or, you can refuse the sample, we can't prove you were drunk but you refused and the same penalty applies for refusal.
I'm sure some people will protest - why should I have to put myself at jeopardy, surely I should be allowed to do crimes without consequence? OK, well lets try it out, if every CEO job goes vacant once such a rule comes into effect I guess we'll have discovered every single one of you is a crook, which is good to know. But I suspect instead we'll have no trouble finding candidates and this was simply mispriced - we won't fix the criminality but now those responsible will sometimes end up behind bars at least.
leokennis|8 months ago
Tor3|8 months ago
Svip|8 months ago
Double_a_92|8 months ago
leakycap|8 months ago
I don't know a CEO outside of smaller strictly-tech companies who would have any familiarity or direct involvement with testing procedures.
This is a weird head to roll for a developer's typo.
Rygian|8 months ago
HelloNurse|8 months ago
DanielHB|8 months ago
CEO doesn't want to invest the resources to match the delivery demand
Quality goes down, safety and security standards are lowered
Also known as the Okta-effect
pavlov|8 months ago
Hence the CEO is practically a political appointee. And in politics, you want to see heads roll. Probably the Prime Minister told her to resign.
v5v3|8 months ago
That was always implicitly in the job description for any public sector CEO role.
It won't affect the ceo's job prospects in any way, they will pop up in a new gig soon enough.
unvs|8 months ago
saltvedt|8 months ago
https://www.vg.no/sport/i/KMAxP4/varsler-gigantbot-til-norsk...
https://www.nrk.no/innlandet/norsk-tipping-far-bot-pa-36-mil...
leakycap|8 months ago
> “It is during this conversion that a manual error has been made in the code that is entered into our game engine,” the company said in a statement. “The amount has been multiplied by 100, instead of being divided by 100.”
That sounds like a problem a CEO should lead the charge to address, not resign from. I wonder if there are still deep issues.
t1E9mE7JTRjf|8 months ago
Svip|8 months ago
ImPleadThe5th|8 months ago
You wanna be in charge? You want to apply pressure that pushes for growth over quality? You're responsible.
We seem to live in a world where CEOs are considered both gurus heroically pulling their company along and blamelesz victims of the wills of the organization whenever there's a failure. They get the best of both worlds, compensated like the first and treated like the second between gigs.
tgv|8 months ago
Yardsed|8 months ago
[deleted]