I spent a bit of time with a retired CEO who oversaw a huge decade of growth in his company. 5 years post retirement he still knew a lot of the workers at all levels by name, was very well liked by everyone we met. He had a few observations about his success:
I didn’t do anything magical, I was just in the right place at the right time and I didn’t screw it up too badly. I have heard similar sentiments from investors who made it big during the .com bubble.
My biggest challenge was in hiring people. In a given year, if 50% of my hires didn’t actively make things worse, that was a good year.
Re: And then these parasites make it to the boardroom and any chance to slow them down vanishes.
What I have seen of board room denizens is: they are personally wealthy and well connected. They exist mostly to provide “warm introductions” for relationships that may make themselves richer. They retain their seats through their personal wealth/power and the connections it brings, and the company retains them by providing them something they value - either monetary or powerful connections.
Being on the board isn’t what makes them unstoppable. Being in control of F.U. money x10 is what makes them unstoppable.
That’s one of the most humble CEOs I’ve ever heard of. Most will spin you a yarn a mile long about how all their success was their own brilliant strategy. Their survivorship bias regarding all the ones that were just as capable and worked just as hard, but never got their shot or were effectively given a field promotion to captain of a sinking ship is wild. Their self-awareness, and recognition of the field of corpses they happen to be the last-man-standing in frequently seems to be lacking.
And as for the parasites in the boardroom, the decision to move executive compensation packages to stock options instead of a salary decades ago had consequences I don’t think the Old Money folks fully respected. How the parasites came to control that grade of F.U. money is not trivial.
I spent a bit of time with a retired CEO who oversaw a huge decade of growth in his company. 5 years post retirement he still knew a lot of the workers at all levels by name, was very well liked by everyone we met. He had a few observations about his success:
I didn’t do anything magical, I was just in the right place at the right time and I didn’t screw it up too badly. I have heard similar sentiments from investors who made it big during the .com bubble.
My biggest challenge was in hiring people. In a given year, if 50% of my hires didn’t actively make things worse, that was a good year.
Re: And then these parasites make it to the boardroom and any chance to slow them down vanishes.
What I have seen of board room denizens is: they are personally wealthy and well connected. They exist mostly to provide “warm introductions” for relationships that may make themselves richer. They retain their seats through their personal wealth/power and the connections it brings, and the company retains them by providing them something they value - either monetary or powerful connections.
Being on the board isn’t what makes them unstoppable. Being in control of F.U. money x10 is what makes them unstoppable.
That’s one of the most humble CEOs I’ve ever heard of. Most will spin you a yarn a mile long about how all their success was their own brilliant strategy. Their survivorship bias regarding all the ones that were just as capable and worked just as hard, but never got their shot or were effectively given a field promotion to captain of a sinking ship is wild. Their self-awareness, and recognition of the field of corpses they happen to be the last-man-standing in frequently seems to be lacking.
And as for the parasites in the boardroom, the decision to move executive compensation packages to stock options instead of a salary decades ago had consequences I don’t think the Old Money folks fully respected. How the parasites came to control that grade of F.U. money is not trivial.