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Comment by vore | Hacker News Reader

It is your job to anticipate the market – you are responsible for all the business decisions! If you're allowed to shrug it off and say "we didn't see this coming, we did the best we can, by the way 3.8% of you are getting laid off because of this but not me, even though I made the calls", well, it sounds like you're just milking the business for yourself until it well and truly goes kaput.

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> is your job to anticipate the market

No, it’s not. It’s to engage it best.

Take two cultures: one that executes leaders for making bad calls and one that judges them according to what they knew when they made the decision. Who wins?

We’ve run this experiment hundreds of times because it’s appealing to think steep consequences for bad decisions leads to good decisions. But it doesn’t. It causes caution and indecision. The example that comes to mind is Carthage vs. Rome; the former executed failed generals while in Rome "defeated generals seldom faced serious punishments" [1].

[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/libyan-studies/artic...

Then the compensation model is inherently unfair if the rank and file is forced to bear the brunt of bad leadership.

> the compensation model is inherently unfair if the rank and file is forced to bear the brunt of bad leadership

Considering solely risk, sure. There are other relevant inputs. More pertinently, this is why we have public services and safety nets.

So we outsource bad decision making of overcompensated people to the public. Brilliant.

Anyone can put their hat in the ring and get into management. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon, I had no connections, and I attended a weak school. I worked my fucking ass off and networked everywhere I could. I built a reputation.

If you can convince people that you are deserving of leadership, you have the guts to put yourself on the line in front of tens or hundreds or thousands of people, go ahead. This is your life and the people you are responsible for. If you do this and want to work for peanuts, be my guest. I get paid what the market thinks I’m worth.

I don’t disagree with what you posted but the last sentence needs highlighting:

> I get paid what the market thinks I’m worth.

It helps when “the market” is your peers who also benefit from benchmarking higher salaries for management.

You’re making all valid statements, but we see CEOs driving businesses into walls, and refuse to take responsibility. I size things for a living, a mistake can mean injury or death. If this happens I tell you I’ll have to bear the consequences. And I’m having an average pay. What’s the market thinks about this? Genuinely interested to know.

If only coders who held CEOs to that kind of standard held themselves to the same standard when bugs are found in their code. Are you just "milking the business" when you don't compensate it for the cost of remedying the bugs you wrote? And the answer is, of course, yes, you and the CEO are and any reasonable excuse you could make applies to the CEO as well.

Is that really tantamount to cutting off someone's source of income and livelihood?

> who held CEOs to that kind of standard held themselves to the same standard

Why? It makes perfect sense to hold CEOs to a much higher standard than ordinary employees. There is nothing flawed about that at all.

> excuse you could make applies to the CEO as well.

Well it shouldn’t

What’s with the sense of entitlement towards jobs in HN?

Businesses will continue to employee you as long as they think it’s a net benefit to them. Their outlook can change at anytime and for nonsensical reasons.

I would suggest accepting this state of affairs. That might mean making sure you have savings, or up to date job skills. Refusing to believe this can happen to you because you have worked so hard or been so loyal will only lead to heartache.

We've built a world where you either get a job, or you are culled from the population. Culling is inhumane, so the only way to resolve that moral quandary is to guarantee jobs.

Being culled occurs when you are not in the workforce. It’s not the same issue as a guarantee to your current employer.

Either way these are just wishful normative statements. The business reality is that they will not guarantee you a job.

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