Cynically, there's no difference from a CEO's perspective between a human employee and a horse
They are both expenses that the CEO would probably prefer to do without whenever possible. A line item on a balance sheet, nothing more
The median CEO salary is in the millions, they do not have to ever worry about money again if they can just stick around for one CEO gig for a couple of years
Granted, people who become CEOs are not likely to think this way
But the fact is that when people have so much money they could retire immediately with no consequences, they are basically impossible for a business to hold accountable outside of actual illegal activity
And let's be real. Often it's difficult to even hold them accountable for actual illegal activity too
Incentives for CEOs and Executives are just way different, which is actually a huge part of the problem we face in society
We are run into the ground for profit by people who think the purpose of life is to profit
False. CEOs are held accountable all the time. At the extreme end, research shows that 1 in 3 CEOs are fired within 18 months.
Termination is the end result of a process
It is not unreasonable to think that is an accountability process of some sort...
I am talking about being accountable to society
I just think that "our company got caught doing seriously illegal / negligent shit but don't worry we fired the CEO who oversaw all of it after paying them 10s of millions of dollars" is really not a punishment to either the company or the CEO
It's kind of a rigged system that ensures no one is held accountable
Oh, "the company" gets fined a fraction of the value they gained from behaving illegally, the shareholders get a ton of money, the executive team gets a golden parachute, and society gets fucked
Honestly we should be putting people to death for this behavior, instead many of us applaud what great business sense everyone involved has
And the size of the parachute they get when they're tossed from the plane? I know that there are many small companies with someone in a "CEO" position who might not be hugely compensated, but speaking of CEOs at major corporate ventures here, as is commonly understood when one talks about questions of executive responsibility (or lack thereof), let's be real on some actual severance figure averages for a clearer picture of consequences and "punishment".