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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

Wut? At higher level in an organization, there is a much greater chance that you will be fired for things that you really have little control over. Now, at the highest levels, the compensation usually matches this level of uncertainty, sometimes with golden parachutes as well, so if you are fired you're still sitting pretty.

But, for me, I wouldn't define "a nice life" with having to deal with that much stress as having so many things outside of my control.

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In theory, I agree with you. In practice, it is mind-bogglingly rare how often high-level executives are fired for any reason, whether their fault or not.

Don’t want to be defending plutocrats, but consider how hard it is to be fired in general whatever the role. Honestly think it’s just par for the course.

I have worked at three large household names, two are in the top five market caps in the world. Logically what you say makes sense, I just havent seen it in reality.

I was part of a layoff affecting 100s of employees because of a boneheaded decision, corrupt project manager, etc. There was nothing at all I could do about it.

With or without a golden parachute, nearly none of these people would ever have to work another day in their lives if they were willing to live a bit less extravagantly. (And we're not talking "beans and rice" here; we're talking, at worst, "only one fancy house, no yachts".)

That's partly the point though, isn't it? You're not accountable for your performance, you're accountable for the performance of the company. And the performance of the company could be extremely good or extremely bad, very much independently of your contributions.

Higher level executives typically have very strong networks built up. Even if they get fired, they're financially already well off and can easily find another role through their networks.

I think layoffs matter too. ICs may be fired more for performance reasons, but they disproportionately face uncertainty created by rounds of layoffs, uncertainty that isn’t compensated.

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