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Comment by solatic | Hacker News Reader

You're describing life under caretaker CEOs, which true to form are a self-fulfilling prophecy for mediocrity. The vast majority of large public CEOs are caretaker CEOs, and it's why working for large public companies can feel so slow and dreary.

But then you get turnaround CEOs, the ones the board hires because the company is in dire financial straits, who comes in, fires executives, sets new strategy, communicates openly and plainly across all layers of management and labor. Things can change quickly under the right leadership.

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The same happens in companies led by founders. I've seen it, and lots of people at google when under larry and sergey will tell you. People under Zuckerberg at FB, Bill G at MSFT, there are stories from all these places if you talk to folks who were there.

And they were all smart guys, courageous, right incentives etc. Large organizations are complicated. The post above is right - there is no silver bullet.

I was under the impression that they were largely stepped out because they couldn't continue the business side of being executives and felt like they were letting the company down? Maybe just impressions I got regarding their departures. I kinda feel like from an outsiders perspective Google had already started to turn into not quite awesome before Larry stepped down. The only interest I have in Google these days is following their next to be cancelled project blunder, year after year.

Well they're sacking a lot of people to avoid thinking about strategy. Maybe firing CEO's is the silver bullet. A big stick incentive to remind the C suite to drive value creation rather than whatever they do now.

It was Sundar's idea (reportedly) to build a browser. Has to be one of the top 10 strategic decisions in the history of business. He's no dummy.

I experienced two turnaround CEOs, and they were the ones that did all the firing. One let the company bleed away headcount until it became desirable for a buyer.

What that really a turnaround then?

For the one that let the company bleed, it was supposed to be, until the previous recession hit, and it became more of “a soft landing is better than a hard one”.

My only experience with turnaround managers at any level boils down to people who don’t take the time to understand how things work before making sweeping changes that they either had at previous employers or wished they had at previous employers. It never seemed to work besides by accident, and definitely seemed to have little to do with a desire or ability to improve the quality of a business.

One of the wall street darlings turn around specialist Albert Dunlap committed fraud probably at every company he ran. So there is that.

I agree. I think when Steve Jobs returned to apple, direction was coaxed from the workforce. The memo to stay or leave. The product confusion and the "4-quadrant" idea (laptop/desktop consumer/pro)

I also remember what happened when steve jobs came back from medical leave, and lots of directionless meandering was cancelled out as someone took the rudder again.

But first you need a company in dire enough straits that a critical mass of people understand a turnaround is necessary. Otherwise, that transformational leader may fire a few people but end up undermined by the masses who just don't care.

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