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Comment by midrus | Hacker News Reader

I always wonder why executives earn so much money when there is no responsibility on them when things go wrong.

I'd like to see in jail those who make decisions, and earn salaries and bonuses accordingly to the responsibility they have.

Earning tons of money and having no responsibility when things go south makes total no sense to me.

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"I always wonder why executives earn so much money when there is no responsibility on them when things go wrong."

Because they can get away with it, the political, cultural and legal environment they operate under allows it.

I also agree it makes no sense, either personally or from the standpoint of society at large.

I was going to say the same thing: "because they can".

> > wonder why executives earn so much money when there is no responsibility on them when things go wrong

It's not a logics based world we live in, but rather bipedal animals doing what they want and can :-/

> I always wonder why executives earn so much money when there is no responsibility on them when things go wrong.

The word you are looking for is "oligarchy".

> there is no responsibility on them when things go wrong

Legal responsibility? Other than that, I've seen executives held responsible just as much as non-executives in my career, from firings to demotions to "transfers". It's not a magical suit of protection +3.

> I'd like to see in jail those who make decisions

Then no one would want to make decisions, other than psychopaths. No thanks. It's unrealistic to think everyone can know the consequences of every decision they make.

> Then no one would want to make decisions

That's lazy. We hold individuals accountable for the choices they make. If you get behind the wheel of a car while drunk and get caught, you get in trouble. If you kill someone due to negligence or intentionally, you get in trouble.

These execs knowingly cut corners and then conspired to cover their asses when things went wrong. This is not an edge-case where something went horrifically wrong that no one saw coming. Warnings were raised and processes in place to protect consumers were ignored. They should be jailed.

"It's not a magical suit of protection"

I kind of think that just getting fired for being partially responsible for the deaths of 100s of people is definitely getting off easy. They got people killed and caused billions in losses for other companies. Someone that steals a car goes to jail for up to 10 years. Which person had a bigger negative impact on society?

"Then no one would want to make decisions, other than psychopaths. No thanks. It's unrealistic to think everyone can know the consequences of every decision they make."

They build aircraft that fly at 30k feet stuffed full of people. Without actual legal consequences beyond docking paychecks, it is a recipe for disaster. How exactly are we supposed to stop the literal gambling with peoples lives because of the potential for a large upside and with the only downside being that they won't make lots of money (so, they just end up even and don't actually lose anything). Las Vegas would go bust in a week with rules like that.

I know someone who worked in this field (managing executive pay). The answer is "because they can".

According to the report, upper management wasn’t at fault, the primary blame falls on two senior test pilots who lied to the FAA to keep MCAS documentation out of the manuals.

Now who pressured the pilots to act that way, who knows?

Could this be a side-effect of the concept of legal personhood of corporations? I wonder - shouldn't criminal liability always stop at the desk of a human person, preferably the person who signed off on the decision?

When I took engineering ethics in college, that was my understanding. You sign off on the bridge and it collapses, you are responsible for the bridge collapsing.

The legal personhood of corporations is a misleading myth. Corporations exist so groups if investors can invest funds in a venture without incurring liability fir its actions or incur indebtedness from its borrowings.

The employees, including execs, still have liability. Assuming prosecutors have the motivation and guts to charge them.

> I always wonder why executives earn so much money

Well connected?

You need a CEO to run a business with hundreds of billions in revenues, and tens of billions in annual profits, where every executive decision has hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in impact to the companies value.

Are you going to cheap out and hire a lesser candidate to save a few million?

There are some very poorly run companies about the place ...

Pro sports teams spend millions every year to measure potential draft picks to the tiniest level in speed, strength, intelligence and mental qualities, and yet every year spend millions on picks that fail. But statistically, first round picks perform far better than second round picks, and second better than later round picks, so their analysis is doing far better than random selections.

That it’s not an exact science and frequently fails doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do your best to get your best candidate.

So you’re saying that senior management is selected based on meritocracy ... right ...

Whataboutism blah blah blah.

And like that, you whole argument folded like a wet paper napkin.

Stalin had that, turned out to not be very effective.

Because the job is to cash the checks, sign off on the bad decisions, squeeze the bottom line and then "resign shamefully" when things go wrong with a giant golden parachute.

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