re: #402 Gus 802

Some CEOs are good. Some of them really understand the market that they’re in, the people they work with, the technology of the industry.

What’s really fictional is the idea that you can take the CEO of a company and drop them into an unrelated company and they’ll start doing well. It’s how it works these days— CEOs shuffle between corporations, even when those corporations are severely different. And yet everyone nods their heads as though that makes any sense.

Lee Iaccoca was a good CEO. Gabe Newwll is a good CEO— sorry, Managing Director. That’s because they really fucking understand their industries and are passionate about them.

Guys who are just passionate about being CEOs don’t do much. They mostly move the pieces around. If the people under them are doing well, the CEO takes a bunch of the credit. If the people under them aren’t doing well, the company fails and the CEO goes on to another big job, usually with a nice big settlement.

It’s all incredibly stupid.