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Comment by bluefirebrand | Hacker News Reader

Careful, you're dangerously close to realizing that Executives at companies provide vanishingly little day to day value to companies.

I'd bet in most companies the CEO is basically just a buffer between the board and the rest of the company, and essentially a fall guy position so the board can avoid accountability.

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"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I don’t think that was a shallow dismissal…?

It's a grand putdown without any supporting information.

Comments get more shallow as they get more grand and generic. "Vanishingly little value" is a dismissal. Note also the dismissive use of the j-word ("just") and the implicit admission that there's no particular support for the claim ("I'd bet"). Also the snark ("Careful, you're dangerously close to realizing"), which invokes an entire genre of internet putdown.

There's no information here other than booing a class of people. Most people enjoy that when the class is high-status, but we're trying to optimize for curiosity on this site, and that genre is something else entirely.

Ironically, (erroneously) quoting the rules at someone is.

How the hell is it not?

Well to be fair, good management should be practically invisible. It shouldn't be much of a factor in your day to day work. They should be overseeing larger trends, gently nudging things to stay on course, talking with others to coordinate, etc.

I have reasonably decent leadership where I work, and the only times I have much contact outside of my direct reporting line is when something has gone (or might go) seriously wrong. Outside of that, I'm given direction, expected to execute, and left to get on with it as I touch base every few days.

Maybe at some companies, but I think Steve Jobs might beg to differ!

You're right, there are some outliers where micro managing have been successful, but I consider them just that: outliers. Because only a vastly minor portion of the population has that level passion and tunnel-vision of focus that is also right.

> They should be overseeing larger trends, gently nudging things to stay on course, talking with others to coordinate, etc.

That's the point. The best managers/CEOs are mostly getting out of the way and telling person A to CC person B about a new idea. Not screwing up a system that works isn't the same as adding value.

> I'd bet in most companies the CEO is basically just a buffer between the board and the rest of the company

Are you thinking of companies in general, or of reasonably prominent/stable publicly traded companies? The CEOs at the startups I've worked at did a heck of a lot more than that -- fundraising, strategy, resolving personnel issues, talking to clients, etc.; I'm thinking of a small company (10-20 employees) and a mid-sized one (400-500).

Yeah one of the big reasons it hard to sell small companies is that most companies fall apart when the CEO leaves.

But oh man, when it is time to replace the CEO the first thing you hear is "we have to offer those millions of dollars or some other company will snipe our CEO!" CEO is the only job where the company suddenly decides that it does have to offer the most money to attract the top talent.

Having worked at the c level and just below at 3 large US corps, let me just say it matters. Ceo is more important than QB I'm the nfl. It's that dramatic.

> provide vanishingly little day to day value to companies

As it should be if the executive isn’t micromanaging. If a crisis erupts and they’re nowhere to be found, on the other hand, that’s a problem.

That's how it should feel at a well run company.

It happens when the CEO has put out any fires before they've grown big.

Or possibly when, by dumb luck, the organization runs well without any such interventions.

Well yeah, but it's not like any company values its CEO for the good office-desk job they do - as opposed to most other positions.

And companies certainly do recognize that not everyone has to sit at a desk - all the expensive consultants...

If it’s like most of my clients, omitting consultants from the seating chart just means you lose your conference rooms all day, every day until the consultants are gone.

Some. But it’s worth looking at the exceptions to understand the range.

On one hand, you have Elon Musk at Tesla and Zuck at FBMeta. Their board is essentially non existent.

On the other hand, we had Carly Fiorina, who wasn’t even buffering the board, and was quite horrible at executing.

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