C-suites have always made bafflingly dumb choices about implementing new tech, but it does feel like executives are making those dumb choices at a much faster, more dangerous rates nowadays
Feels like C-suites are speed-running their own tenures at companies more now. More willing to 'burn the ships' for a few good years under them, make good coin, then peace out or bounce to the next thing.
Seems to be way less long-term planning/strategy.. which I have a few different thoughts on..
one more thing I’ll say is this also feels tied to the loss of consequences & loss of the importance of ‘reputation’.
Politics have devolved so much, & this is now impacting the corporate world. Anyone that faked caring about ethics for their reputation feels like that shit doesn’t matter anymore
lmao yes this too. But there used to be a world where some CEOs cared enough about pretending to care or pretending to be inspiring and ethical, et cetera
Also the CEOs 'talk' & this thread might land me on some List of Ire but whatever. If you're a CEO & GAF about others this doesn't apply to you
Maybe I'm cynical but it seems like CEO's have never taken ethics seriously. If a company is big enough to have a CEO, they are doing something unethical, usually screwing their employees.
Yeah. I do understand why people might feel this way. However, I *personally* feel uncomfortable w such blanket statements because I personally know at least one CEO that kind of challenges this.
I also try to avoid viewing any group as a monolith - even privileged?
My *sense* is that in the 50s and 60s, the idea of "civic duty" and that shareholders were not the only stakeholders that CEOs/boards cared about, So they didn't have the same incentives to be unethical. Do I have anything solid to back that up? Of course not.
I think this sort of cynicism is common and part of the problem. If you are a CEO, a lot of people will always think you are definitionally "bad" no matter what you do, creating less incentive to behave ethically. Why bother?
They never took ethics seriously or were punished for screwing the employees (often the opposite), but my impression is that it used to be if you actually ran *the company* into the ground, you didn't get hired to run another one. Now it seems to be SOP (also applies to university presidents).
That's when they could destroy their company by pissing off customers. Now they can act however they want and know the company is fine cuz it doesn't matter what customers think. Make businesses small enough to fear customers again. That's still huge btw eg Coke in the 80s but not invincible.
“Hypocrisy is the price vice pays to virtue”.
It’s better to live in a world where unethical people feel compelled to pretend to the contrary. Feels like we’re heading towards a low trust society.
Yes
They have long-term strategies for *themselves* which entail strip-mining a series of companies in turn, and always bailing just before they collapse
Aye. And on the smaller scale, pushing a company to greater heights under them, but on a growth path that can’t be sustained & ends up robbing the company of its future. But they know the crash might not come for a year or two after they’re done, and they plan their exit accordingly….
... and this is their treadmill to running larger companies and graduating along the CEO path. Some of them leave a wake of burning smaller companies in their path to personal development.
You know what AI doesn't do?
Work at the office building in person.
Attend meetings in person.
Either pick one fad or the other, but they're not compatible.
Wonder if there's a connection between obliterating every major newspaper and journalist-lead outlet, and CEOs making increasingly dumber and less informed decisions on vibes?
🤔🤔🤔
C-suite FOMO is the worst. Plus, they can't resist huffing brochure-paint & signing on the dotted-line, especially if it comes on the advice of a consulting company, most of which should have been dismantled under RICO statutes years ago.
That’s because many businesses have been in a sustained free fall since the height of the pandemic and yet they still have enough cash to spend on desperate measures.
“Move Fast and Break Stuff”* became an ethos the last 15 years and it absolutely should not have
*do not repair after breaking and fuck you for even asking
I did some reading about how democracies evolved from monarchies a while ago. The top line:
Better outcomes in democracy were because when your leader sucked, you could replace them easily. Just wait a couple years and you can get a 0.0 WAR suit in there instead.
Corporations aren't like that.
