Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

Most of us here could easily do the day-to-day work of the CEO of our companies. Somehow we have adopted this corporate mysticism that tells us that people with CxO or SVP in their titles are somehow smarter, more skilled, more qualified than the rank-and-file, but I don't think it's true. They eat and shit just like we do.

View on HN

> Most of us here could easily do the day-to-day work of the CEO of our companies.

I'm not so sure about that.

When I do a thought exercise and put myself in our CEO's shoes, I think "ok, which decisions do I need to make today to keep the company thriving in the next 3 or 5 or 10 years?"

For me personally, I don't really know. You can't just do the same thing because the economy is constantly evolving, but I can't see where it's going.

You would also have a whole team of consultants, advisors, lawyers, and VP+ people specializing in each area telling you what the problems and possibilities are if you actually had that job. They're not operating in a vaccuum.

The fact that you thought to consider the next 3, 5, or 10 years already makes you a better CEO than most CEOs that I personally know.

Next quarter earnings call is the only thing that's important. Hollow out everything for that goal. My bonus depends on it.

> For me personally, I don't really know. You can't just do the same thing because the economy is constantly evolving, but I can't see where it's going.

Neither does your CEO

Here's the trick: the CEO doesn't know either, but they make decisions anyway. Knowing that they don't know is a good skill for a CEO to have, it freezing when they don't know is not.

the skill is twisting the optics, and in some cases, the reality, to match those decisions.

Nah, even if you fail miserably, you'll still get a nice payout and retire comfortably. Hell, you can even commit crimes and the company will pay the fines for you!

I do agree here. Being a CEO is in fact stressful. I think as someone pointed out, your first problem is you're thinkin 3, 5, 10 years. Unless you're a founder building your company, my observation is think in quarters. A year at most. You just need to survive long enough to move on to bigger things. The mess you leave is the next guy's problem. And I don't know how to live like that.

Obviously most CEOs think it's going somewhere where AI is the most important thing, and you must use a lot of it, for everything.

If you just insist on putting AI in everything, you are doing as good a job as most CEOs right now.

Was that so hard? Doesn't seem hard at all.

You could, in good times. In bad times it is an entirely different story.

That might be a slightly pessimistic point of view.

Experience is probably (at least should be) the differentiating factor.

Network and social status is more important than your experiences.

And media loves outliers or bullshitting on the self made part.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com