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Comment by 79rsgang | Hacker News Reader

Seen it all from start ups to public. It's not every C-Level but when one does join it doesn't take long for everyone to know know they've clearly failed their way to the top.

It's striking how one will be hired to a non-traditional C-level title for a department they have no experience in and run it into the ground. I've even witnessed department leads beg not to hire one from the start and be fully ignored. I guess the fact they've been at the top for so long makes them untouchable?

What's outstanding is how often it happens and how both hiring and keeping them around never makes a lick of business sense. Even once exposed as incompetent, founders will dig their heals in and find any excuse to not bear responsibility of their bad hiring decision. They eventually leave on good terms and continue the cycle elsewhere.

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Lol Bob Smith (CEO of Blue Origin) is the pinnacle example of this.

These people need to be publicly named and shamed, enough to show up as a huge black eye in their Google/due diligence results.

I have suffered under a few such C-levels and their incompetence is maddening. It is hard not to see the C-level social network as one big circle-jerk, and they get to walk away scot free. These folks are only worthy of spending the rest of their life as a clerk at a gas station, not (mis)managing million/billion dollar companies.

"named and shamed"

The defamation lawsuits will be overwhelming. They don't even need to win, they can just lawyer you into submission. It's just like when you end up firing a regular employee for cause, the best course is to say nothing so nobody has a reason to get litigious.

I have suffered under a few such C-levels and their incompetence is maddening.

Preceded by:

These people need to be publicly named and shamed

You first.

This isn't the place, and it needs to be a sudden, collective effort.

Seems to me you are not walking the talk

Because it is too easy to degenerate into evil types using accusations to snipe at competitors, or other fuckery.

As another comment notes, accusations need evidence and solid claims. I have neither... I don't know the super deep internal politics of where I worked, only whispers from overhead conversations. Plus a number of sudden, "cordial" departures, and a bunch of napkin math estimating the costs of this person's antics.

Don't forget these are wealthy folks accustomed to using the legal system for their own ends. Ending up in the crosshairs of these folks could destroy a man, and as far as martyrdoms go you wouldn't even be making a larger impact as it changes nothing about the situation of other bad actors.

So, I'm going to grumble, and if I ever decide to bring her down I would do so in a place far, far from here.

Also, do you plan on financing my inevitable legal bills? What about any potential settlement?

that’s what happens when you hire people not based on their talent but on nepotism

But does hiring for merit really makes sense at C level?

Ideally a C level executive should have deep connections with government/large companies.

This is how entire capitalism functions at the moment. Connections make you money, not merit.

Even if you hire the best CEO there is, without connections there is no possible way to make money. How do you think people get good contracts for their companies?

The reason for hiring someone you know is because you presumably know them well enough to know that you can trust them and that they aren't a fake or otherwise incompetent. Even then, you can do an additional vetting for competence to give the decision more credibility. Plenty of vetting is possible, and recommended, even if you eliminate all candidates that you do not know at all.

If that leaves you with no candidates, only then does it become an either/or tradeoff. Don't conflate the plan A with the plan B.

> But does hiring for merit really makes sense at C level?

Aren't these the people running the company? So, yes?

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