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Comment by bashtoni | Hacker News Reader

Based on my observations, the most important characteristics of a CEO is to be over 6ft, and to walk about looking important.

CEO jobs are safe until the humanoid robots have mastered this skill.

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I'm 6'5 and a jobless software dev. If anyone has a CEO role going spare, let me know, I'll have a crack at it.

Damn I’m only 6’2. I’ll settle for CFO.

I have touched money before. It’s in my wheelhouse.

Same let us know people

Are you also sociopathic, and can you speak confidently even when you're blowing hot air? How about your bullying and/or flattery skills?

You guys are so daft about it. The fact that you do not see what work goes to keep company running and be responsible for thousands of people still having their jobs…

Some work is 24/7 basically, when you have to keep business afloat there are no sick days or worse days. Your brain is 24/7 preoccupied with the work.

Meanwhile you walk out after 8 hours and stop caring at all because - someone else does

Someone else grinds to provide you with employment so there is work at all and the company keeps sailing.

I am sure you guys are smart, adults. stop being so childish and immature. You are better than that

Giving concrete examples of what work goes into the job would be more persuasive than ranting about how hard it is.

Board members often have posts at multiple companies because of how little work they actually do.

Meanwhile most companies prohibit side jobs for us plebians (sorry, "non-executives".)

Boards are not involved in day to day decision making unless something has gone very wrong. The CEO shows up every day.

It's a shame there isn't something like github badges for CEOs. This post would merit a "Motivational Message Master".

The best leaders know how to fraternize

Found the CEO

This is one thing I appreciate about Japan. There is so many short nerdy looking CEOs

Oh the other hand, Japanese businesspeople are exceptionally good at the "walk about looking important" part.

It’s called the Gemba walk but it does more than just to look important. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemba

I'm under 6ft and have never been a CEO, so this appears to check out.

Also, it has 4 legs, so it must be a cat.

(Corroboration, not deduction: "has four legs, so it is more probably a cat". That is vs falsification: "short, hence not all managers are tall". Which does not work anyway going from the logical context to the stochastic context, because it becomes "the exception that confirms the rule". I trust you knew, but.)

lol, more like a warped version of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism

or, more probably I have used a fallacy to analogize the wrong fallacy :)

As I always say, CEOs are corporate status symbols. "Look how successful we are, our CEO is super-handsome, went to William and Mary, and we pay him $15 million a year"

They're more like the winners of a pyramid scheme / MLM. You want everyone to see there's a winner so they all keep up the grind.

My SVP is 6'4". 6 measly feet aint cutting it, that's just "king of manlets" territory.

Reject ‘manlet’ — RETVRN to ‘bantam’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantam_(military)

> One of the miners, rejected on account of his size, offered to fight any man there as proof of his suitability as a soldier, and six men were eventually called upon to remove him.

This is not accurate. I've seen CEOs under 6ft wearing platform shoes do a perfectly good job of walking about looking important.

You’d think culture and personality fit with a board of directors would be an easier feat for a robot.

Depends on the board. The premium CEO robot will be powered by a bio-ethanol fuel cell so that it can play golf with the board of directors for as long as drinks are available.

Premium? Just go to a local dive bar and find an alcoholic robot with a penchant for burping loudly and bending things (e.g. golf clubs).

Tender its payment in booze, and you've already eliminated any monetary acquisition cost.

Humanoid robotics has been optimizing for the wrong benchmark this whole time. Forget dexterity, we need executive presence.

>Forget dexterity, we need executive presence.

An oxymoron if I've ever heard one.

The CEOs at my current job, last job, and previous job were all my height or shorter, and I'm several inches below 6ft.

Challenge them to a measuring and take your rightful place at the top table.

It's a sign your in line to be the next CEO

That’s how leaders throughout history have worked. Usually you prove your mettle in the first half of your career and then do the hard work of being the face of the company once you’re an executive. Diminishing what a leader does is the foremost underling cliché throughout all of history.

You're hearing the echo and ascribing it to the noise.

A constant push and pull between leaders and the led is the fundamental. Criticism in both directions is necessary and healthy, and at different times both correct and misplaced.

There have been great leaders and awful ones. Acting as if all leaders are proven and deserving is as asinine as naming all CEOs as useless.

Right now we are at a point where CEOs are biased towards being quite anti worker and too easily rewarded. It's not surprising the cliches against them come out.

Maybe you simply don’t hear about great CEOs, so there is a bias

I would argue the bias is for ceos (of public companies) to act a certain way due to inherent incentives the way the world is set up, which biases their personality. But I won't go into that old argument again.

Just add some antenna on top

Shit, why ain't I a CEO, then?

Based on my observations, ahem research, you must not have fired developers to make room for AI. Therefore, you are not qualified to be a CEO.

Using HN instead of walking around looking important

I think either gray hair or bald does a lot too.

6 feet balding and gray here. Can pretend to walk importantly. Never felt farther than CEO. Maybe it's a sign I need to start my own company.

This is the most reddit thread I have seen on HN ever.

Unfortunately, it seems like they’re becoming more common in the last 6-12 months.

The timeline has been

Last 5-6 years: COVID surge in HN brings in more people

Last 3-4 years: General rise in AI topics which have broad appeal and brought in a lot of people

Last 2-3 years: More overtly political discourse on HN bringing in more people

Last 1-2 years: Bots start coming in, some are very obvious, but they have gotten better and better to the point its hard to tell anymore.

Last year: Sharp rise in shallow redditor-style comments, especially in cultural/political discussions comments that are snarky but contribute little to discussion outside of affirmations like "Laws are for poor people"

True. Well what can be expected from a thread with that hilarious title?

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