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CEO Departures Hit Record Levels (msn.com) 78

Chief executives are exiting their posts at an unprecedented rate as economic volatility and emerging challenges reshape corporate leadership decisions, according to data from executive tracking firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Public-company CEO departures reached 373 last year, jumping 24% from 2023 levels. Among U.S. businesses with at least 25 employees, 2,221 chief executives left their positions in 2024, the highest number since Challenger began monitoring departures in 2002.

Corporate leaders are citing AI, tariffs, recession fears and scrutiny of diversity initiatives as key stressors driving the exodus. "It's a very difficult time to lead," said Blake Irving, former GoDaddy CEO. "Given all the weird gyrations going on in the economy and with our new administration, it's really hard for even great leaders to find a true north." The trend extends beyond the C-suite, with managers 1.7 times more likely to report high workplace stress than rank-and-file employees, according to a recent McLean & Co. survey of over 200,000 workers.

CEO Departures Hit Record Levels

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  • Oh no! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Scutter ( 18425 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @03:27PM (#65357033) Journal

    Anyway,

    • Re:Oh no! (Score:4, Funny)

      by Thud457 ( 234763 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @04:21PM (#65357149) Homepage Journal

      "It's a very difficult time to lead,"

      It ain't all roses for us galley slaves either mate!

      • by TWX ( 665546 )

        "It's a very difficult time to lead,"

        It ain't all roses for us galley slaves either mate!

        yeah, but they have the ability to jump ship, collect their golden parachute bonuses, and not have their names plastered all over failing companies.

        They did learn one thing from the lessons of the Great Depression, which was to not be associated with the failing companies, to not have one's name or wealth tied up in them.

        • yeah, but they have the ability to jump ship, collect their golden parachute bonuses, and not have their names plastered all over failing companies.

          And that's the information that's not being flapped -- TFA talks about three CEOs who got out and are now either retired or working in a 'less stressful' position, but it doesn't say how big a share of this increase in exits are taking the standard 'jump ship, collect golden parachute, roll over to a new CEO position for more money' exit route rather than the 'exit to less or no responsibility' route where they can duck the consequences of their bad decisions.

    • Re:Oh no! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @05:24PM (#65357279)

      Anyway,

      I take it you don't work? While I have zero love for rich arseholes, a change in CEO is hugely disruptive to many organisations as the new people come in and "leave their mark" on the company. We have gone through several CEOs in the past 7 years and it feels like we are in a perpetual re-org. Nothing is more demotivating than finding out a project you worked on for two years gets cancelled during construction because the new CEO thinks the company should go in a different direction.

      Nothing is more fun that having the central engineering team split up in two teams with different focuses, and then just as your start to figure out an efficient way to work having a new CEO decide that actually one central engineering team is objectively better.

      There's no "anyway" about it. Our current CEO is fighting for his job with shareholders at the moment and I'm just dreading what pointless change their replacement may bring and what disruption that will cause.

      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Anyway,

        I take it you don't work? While I have zero love for rich arseholes, a change in CEO is hugely disruptive to many organisations as the new people come in and "leave their mark" on the company. We have gone through several CEOs in the past 7 years and it feels like we are in a perpetual re-org. Nothing is more demotivating than finding out a project you worked on for two years gets cancelled during construction because the new CEO thinks the company should go in a different direction.

        Nothing is more fun that having the central engineering team split up in two teams with different focuses, and then just as your start to figure out an efficient way to work having a new CEO decide that actually one central engineering team is objectively better.

        There's no "anyway" about it. Our current CEO is fighting for his job with shareholders at the moment and I'm just dreading what pointless change their replacement may bring and what disruption that will cause.

        There is an "oh no, anyway" as it really tends not to affect us little people.

        A company going through C-levels at an alarming rate has far bigger problems than the edicts from on high about naming conventions or whatever small way they want to make their mark. Take Boeing for example, they've gone through 4 CEOs in the last 10 years and none of them have taken the glaringly obvious steps of fixing the underlying issue. They've just fallen on their sword and taken their golden parachutes when it becomes t

      • Welcome to Late Stage Capitalism. It doesn't get any better until the entire system collapses. Even then, it will not be easy, if it is even possible, to build again. We could end up like all the countries in Africa where it is just one warlord after another.

  • by Rujiel ( 1632063 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @03:33PM (#65357041)

    the last few years, pretty consistently since 2019 with a small percentage dip in CEO departures in 2022. It's a continuing story and an interesting one. No one wants to be CEO if they think things are going to shit and they'll be to blame, even if they know they get a golden parachute out of it.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/0... [cnbc.com]

    • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @03:46PM (#65357071)

      No one wants to be CEO if they think things are going to shit and they'll be to blame

      And there we hace the core of the problem. Real leaders would value a challenge like this and rise to the occasion. I guess CEOs are very rarely leaders these days.

      • We don't pay these people because they have values outside their own net worth, we just tie their net worth to their business. If you know the economy is going to suck for the next 5 years, and no matter what you do your pay is going to decline, it's a good time to focus on that yacht.

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        They're just employees like everyone else. If you know things are going to hell and your boss is going to pin the blame on you do you:

        1) Stick it out because you enjoy the challenge and for the glory of The Company and etc.

        2) Find a new job before the shit hits the fan and miraculously all flies in your direction.

      • It is everyone for themselves currently; otherwise, you can't even survive. There is no environment for leadership to take hold as a central group of people have taken EVERYTHING for themselves and let just enough resources in to make what they want happen.

        They won many years ago, now, we are seeing the results of their winning.

    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      "No one wants to be CEO if they think things are going to shit and they'll be to blame, even if they know they get a golden parachute out of it."

      Bullshit. Virtually the entire world's population would want to be treated like a CEO for even a single day. Sociopaths who exploit workers and pocket obscene salaries and incentives also do not want those benefits to end or to be accountable, that is what you mean to say. There are boatloads of cretins who will exploit a company to get a golden parachute and al

      • by Rujiel ( 1632063 )
        I'm talking about people who would even be in the running to be a CEO at a large company
      • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        Hence they are leaving. These guys are strategic thinkers. Right now they are thinking get out before the company contracts, let the next guy take the blame. In a few years i can come back and get another CEO gig via my connections after "having spent some time with my family" after all just look at the charts $CROP was wildy successful under my 'leadership'

        The reality the world is changing right now in significant structural ways. What these guys are saying is "I don't have the smarts to anticipate and

    • If a significant number of CEOs are departing and cashing out golden parachutes, the boards that hired them are at fault for (a) selecting the wrong person and (b) improperly incentivizing them.

      Of course, no BoD can hold a card to the set of sycophants who gave away another large chunk of Telsa to Elon, only to watch him hose the company's reputation and revenue. At least for a while, there was some accountability in the Delaware courts for that. Of course, that's why Musk moved Tesla to Texas.

    • the last few years, pretty consistently since 2019 with a small percentage dip in CEO departures in 2022. It's a continuing story and an interesting one. No one wants to be CEO if they think things are going to shit and they'll be to blame, even if they know they get a golden parachute out of it.

      https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/0... [cnbc.com]

      I'll take all that blame for millions of dollars.

  • Since they get golden parachutes and the next one will get paid more than their predecessor, is this really a good sign?

    • by Whateverthisis ( 7004192 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @04:05PM (#65357119)
      I hate to be the guy defending CEOs but not only have I been one (a very small company), but i serve on Boards of Directors of several companies (again all small, most less than 10 and one above 50 employees).

      Most CEOs do NOT have golden parachutes. And those only trigger if the Board choses to remove them; this article implies they are leaving meaning they are leaving their severance packages behind if they have it. On top of that, most CEOs are actually quite human, particularly small companies. Yet they are the ones who have to live with the responsibility of letting people go, or manage expectations of investors, Board members, customers and employees which very often don't align very well, or potentially losing millions of dollars of investment entrusted to them to build the company. You have to make a guess if the market is ready for a product or a strategy shift, and if you get it wrong you lose big time for investors, employees get laid off, and you are likely out of a job. The job market for CEOs doesn't turn on a dime; many find themselves in a new role 6 to 12 months later (hence the severance packages, which if they have one is usually one year salary at most, and that's not always).

      When we talk about CEOs getting overpaid with golden parachutes, we often think of guys like Robert Nardelli [wikipedia.org] who was CEO of Home Depot for 7 years, didn't move the stock price at all, resigned and triggered a $210M golden parachute. Those are few and far between though, and they make the news and becomes the story. But there are 211,130 CEOs in the US [bls.gov] and packages like Nardelli's are maybe 1 in 1,000 and could be as high as 1 in 10,000. instead most are hustling to make the companies work, barely scraping by in a lonely position at all times where failure on a massive scale is a constant threat with no safety net below you; you're the last line of defense and there's no one to turn to.

      • by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @04:24PM (#65357161) Journal

        I absolutely agree with you. But the problem is, you're talking about your smaller companies and not the big names that the general public is familiar with.
        "Golden parachutes" aside? The CEO of any company with a household name is paid exponentially times more compensation than the rank and file employee working there.

        People are generally fed up with the disparity there -- especially when these businesses are so large, many of the workers doing the customer-facing work may be managed by several bosses above them and never interact directly with the CEO once. In these situations, it becomes obvious that most business decisions that matter are being made by other individuals. Only the real general, highest-level stuff gets determined by the CEO, and when he/she makes a poor decision? It's typical to see him/her change course with some platitudes like "better to act quickly but be wrong than get paralyzed by inaction". A bunch of rank and file workers get punished by way of reduced raises the next year to cover for the mistake, and it's business as usual.

        I've always had FAR more respect for smaller operations, where it's clear that the top level people are really keeping a pulse on everything happening in the company, and they really DO call all the shots, taking full responsibility for mistakes along the way.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

        Your information changes nothing. The CEO pay is ~$725,553/year. I don't care if the corporation is 2 people or 2000 people, no CEO has ever done $725,553/year worth of work. And speaking of board of directors, the average board member is paid ~$325,000/year, which is also way too much for the lack of real work. I'm guessing you weren't one of them in either role, which, I guess, is unfortunate for you. No one at Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Microsoft, Honda, Toyota, or any company ever, has worked "hard enough"

        • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

          average CEO pay**

        • by HiThere ( 15173 )

          There are reasonable arguments that Steve Jobs was worthy of his hire. And once upon a time I think Elon Musk was also.
          Note that neither of those was someone I'd want to work under, but they did the job. (OTOH, I've heard it claimed that Musk was just lucky. I don't believe it, but I've never checked enough to be sure that's wrong.)

        • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @05:32PM (#65357291)

          no CEO has ever done $725,553/year worth of work

          Define the worth of work? What do you do for your job? I know what I do. My decisions don't impact my colleagues, their retirement packages, or society in general. On the flip side there are several CEO's whose job is literally to define the fate of thousands of not just employees but can define the stability of public communities in nations, changing the land scape in the most literal sense of the word with their decision.

          Responsibility is worth something, even if you think you work harder, the reality is the impact of your decisions are often meaningless compared to those in the C-suite team who at the flick of a pen decide the fate of thousands.

          Yeah at the high end CEO pay is excessive, but $750k / year is not at all outrageous.

          • Thanks for taking that approach. You're entirely accurate.

            When I was CEO, I was bringing a struggling startup off the ground, was responsible for millions of dollars of investor money and trust, the careers of over 20 people given the lifespan of the company as well as managing customer needs, desires, and expectations.

            CEO compensation isn't about value of work. It's about the weight of responsibility. It's about setting expectations, and a term that doofuses like him that don't understand the le

            • Do you know what's more taxing to one's health and longevity than "responsibility"? Living in poverty.
            • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

              CEO compensation isn't about value of work. It's about the weight of responsibility.

              That is full on horse shit. That still isn't an excuse for the general average pay disparities between the top and the bottom. The top may be "responsible" for the bottom, but without the bottom there is no top.

              forcing your business partner out of the company because he sexually harassed an employee, but per the law still has legal ownership as a partner

              Perfect, thanks for an example I didn't know I even needed. This is a wonderful example of how the system is garbage. Sexual harassed an employee? They don't get have legal ownership anymore. I do not give a fuck.

              It's about compensating for a key employee who needs 3 weeks off

              Don't put all your eggs in one basket. No singular employee should be so important that

        • by Rinnon ( 1474161 )

          In my opinion, small businesses with less than 10 employees shouldn't be allowed to be a corporation to begin with.

          How did you come to determine that the number of employees should be the guiding factor in whether or not incorporation should be allowed? Wouldn't that create huge liability issues and severely disadvantage small businesses prior to reaching 10 (or whatever number we pick) employees, stifle genuine grassroots entrepreneurship, and just further entrench the already massive corporations that do exist?

          And speaking of corporations, their current legally required structure is bullshit and should be completely redone from the ground up.

          What is it that you dislike about corporate structure? The owners (Shareholders) elect/appoint the Board of D

          • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

            How did you come to determine that the number of employees should be the guiding factor in whether or not incorporation should be allowed?

            Arbitrarily for argument's sake.

            Wouldn't that create huge liability issues and severely disadvantage small businesses prior to reaching 10 (or whatever number we pick) employees, stifle genuine grassroots entrepreneurship, and just further entrench the already massive corporations that do exist?

            Without redoing the current system, probably. It's not a one-step snap fix. There are many cascading changes that would need to happen.

            What is it that you dislike about corporate structure?

            All of it, pretty much. But mostly how they are treated as legal entities.

        • by deKernel ( 65640 )

          In my opinion, small businesses with less than 10 employees shouldn't be allowed to be a corporation to begin with. And speaking of corporations, their current legally required structure is bullshit and should be completely redone from the ground up.

          And then watch all the small business's disappear. I love fools like you who complain about big business's, but then say foolish things like that which simply gives big business's more power due to less competition. But wait, let me guess you will simply push for more regulations which again always favor big business because they have the money to find the loopholes, and those regulations eventually squash what is left of the competition.
          I can always tell the people that have no idea just what it takes to n

          • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

            You seemed to ignore the second part where the current legal structure for corporations needs to be redone from the ground up. Which implies a new system that potentially (in my mind) would benefit only small businesses while actively not helping big businesses at all. In fact, I would design a system that harshly punishes those who attempt to find and use loopholes. And not just with mere fines, I would revoke business licenses and ban those people from starting new businesses as a start.

            It comes down to b

        • Where are you seeing that? The BLS data from two years ago that the parent commenter linked has a mean of 258k and a median of 209k: https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/m... [bls.gov]
          • His source is Salary.com [salary.com], which tends towards inflating pay for various roles and also takes into account other forms of compensation like equity awards, benefits, etc and puts a dollar amount on them. Given the extreme variability of CEO pay, the high degree of difficulty in putting a value on equity compensation which is a huge part of CEO compensation, and the very different structures you get from one company to the next, Salary.com can't really be trusted in this case.

            It's also absurd to suggest Bo

            • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

              Salary.com may be estimating value of other forms of compensation, but more compensation is more compensation. It highlights the disparity between not only the top and bottom of any single business, but also the top and bottom of the industries themselves. The entire system is bad.

              You were neither yelled at, nor called any names. Either way you are, in fact, defending and supporting a system that thrives on exploitation.

        • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

          Your information changes nothing. The [average] CEO pay is ~$725,553/year.

          You are talking about different things. You're talking about CEOs of gigantic corporations. He's talking about CEOs of tiny corporations.

          And without a source, I have no idea what that number came from or what it refers to. But if the top, say, ten CEOs are paid $101.5 million, and the next 90 are paid nothing at all, the average pay of a CEO is over a million dollars, even though most of the CEOs are unpaid.

          I don't care if the corporation is 2 people or 2000 people, no CEO has ever done $725,553/year worth of work.

          No CEO of a 2 person corporation is getting $725,553/year

          • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

            You're talking about CEOs of gigantic corporations. He's talking about CEOs of tiny corporations.

            That changes nothing.

            But if the top, say, ten CEOs are paid $101.5 million, and the next 90 are paid nothing at all, the average pay of a CEO is over a million dollars, even though most of the CEOs are unpaid.

            Congrats, you pointed out the basic issue with using averages. I don't care if 5% of CEOs are so much that it's skewing the average. It highlights the fact that there is a problem.

            No CEO of a 2 person corporation is getting $725,553/year

            Not relevant to the point. No one deserves that kind of salary. No one.

            • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

              You're talking about CEOs of gigantic corporations. He's talking about CEOs of tiny corporations.

              That changes nothing.

              It "changes" nothing, but it does point out that your comment is irrelevant to the post you were responding to.

              But if the top, say, ten CEOs are paid $101.5 million, and the next 90 are paid nothing at all, the average pay of a CEO is over a million dollars, even though most of the CEOs are unpaid.

              Congrats, you pointed out the basic issue with using averages.

              You were the one who gave an average. I was just pointing out the flaw in that.

              • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

                There is no flaw in using averages since it exposes a problem. The average is too high. Therefore, there is a problem. Whether that be the very tip top is just that much higher than the bottom or all of them are overpaid or somewhere in the middle - it doesn't matter. The disparities are too large between these big CEOs and these small CEOs. The disparities are too large between CEO of a company and low level workers. There are only two things a companies profits should go towards: reinvestment into the com

                • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

                  If that had been your point, it might have made sense, but what you actually said-- in response to somebody talking about small business CEOs-- was " I don't care if the corporation is 2 people or 2000 people."

                  What you said had nothing to do with CEOs of corporations of 2 people.

                  • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

                    Uh, yeah, the second half of the sentence "no CEO has ever done $725,553/year worth of work" still applies to them. Maybe no CEO of a 2 person corporation has ever earned that much, maybe they have, maybe one will someday in the future - its irrelevant, but the second half is always relevant. If anything, it's just useless extra filler, but it doesn't run counter to anything else I've said since.

        • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          In my opinion, small businesses with less than 10 employees shouldn't be allowed to be a corporation to begin with. And speaking of corporations, their current legally required structure is bullshit and should be completely redone from the ground up.

          Why? A corporation is a legal structure the purpose of which is to let more than one person share ownership of something. There are very important differences between one person and more than one person. Why is 10 a magic line for you?

          What would you change about

      • who was CEO of Home Depot for 7 years, didn't move the stock price at all, resigned and triggered a $210M golden parachute.

        Why is having a stable stock price a problem (not that I'm at all justifying the $210M)? Because we have what Edward Zitron calls a "Rot Economy" [wheresyoured.at]:

        [M]arkets do not prioritize innovation, or sustainable growth, or stable, profitable enterprises. As a result, companies regularly do not function with the intent of making “good” businesses - they want businesses that semiotically align with what investors - private and public - believe to be “good”....

        Venture capitalists are regularly incentivized to create businesses that look valuable but aren’t necessarily of value.... the path is always the same - growth, growth, growth, legitimization, growth, growth, acquisition, and then an eventual reckoning with real life....

        As my friend Kasey put it in a recent conversation, growth is a fire. If you build a nice, sustainable fire, it’ll keep you warm, cook food and sustain life. And if the only thing you care about is how big your fire is, then it’ll set fire to everything around it, and the more you throw into it, the more it’ll burn. Eventually, you’ll have nothing left, but if you desperately desire that fire, you will constantly have to find new things to burn at any cost.

        And we, societally, have turned our markets and businesses - private and public - over to arsonists. We have created conditions where we celebrate people for making “big” companies but not “good” companies.

        Venture capital and the public markets don’t actually reward or respect “good” businesses or “good” CEOs - they reward people that can steer the kind of growth that raises the value of an asset....

        The consequences are that these companies will continue to invest in things that grow the overall revenue of the company over all else. They will mass-hire and mass-fire, because there are no consequences when the markets don’t really care as long as the company itself stays valuable. Venture capitalists certainly don’t mind - after all, it’s “less burn” to “get you through” tough climates that were arguably created by the poor hiring decisions of a company that was never incentivized to hire sustainably or operate profitably.

        Cory Doctorow [pluralistic.net]:

        Anyone holding growth stock knows that there will come a day when those stocks will transition, in an eyeblink, from being undervalued to being grossly overvalued, and that when that day comes, there will be a mass sell-off. If you're still holding the stock when that happens, you stand to lose bigtime....

        That's where these growth-at-all-stakes maneuvers bent on capturing an adjacent sector come from.... Google is an especially grievous offender here. Familiar buttons in Gmail, Gdocs, and the Android message apps have been replaced with AI-summoning fatfinger traps. Android is filled with these pitfalls – for example, the bottom-of-screen swipe gesture used to switch between open apps now summons an AI, while ridding yourself of that AI takes multiple clicks.... they must convince investors that their AI offerings are "getting traction."

        If we had an economy oriented towards stability as opposed to growth, CEO's might not have quite so many headaches today.

        • Great question. There's a philosophical point and a practical point, but it's about opportunity cost.

          Fundamentally, someone has money. Maybe you're wealthy and it's your own, but more likely it's a mutual fund with thousands of investors. In most cases for public companies, it's large funds like pension funds or mutual funds that own big amounts of public companies. They are looking for growth, because the majority of the money comes from people looking to grow their retirement nest egg. So, if you

      • find themselves in a new role 6 to 12 months later (hence the severance packages, which if they have one is usually one year salary at most, and that's not always).

        Boohoo. You're just confirming that CEOs are special snowflakes that need their hands held. Normal workers only get weeks from severance if anything at all and they too have extended periods of unemployment. Worse, they aren't paid enough to have tons of savings to manage the gap.

        Your claim that CEOs need severance packages to hold them over until their next job is very telling. 1st, CEOs get paid enough that they should have plenty in savings to do that themselves. 2nd, it's not a company's job to pay

  • by Local ID10T ( 790134 ) <ID10T.L.USER@gmail.com> on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @03:54PM (#65357087) Homepage

    At the executive level, it is common to negotiate the terms of your exit before you begin working.

    When times get tough pull the ripcord and move on. Take a long vacation, and polish up your resume: "under my leadership the business grew!" (don't mention that you bailed just before it cratered...those were market conditions beyond your control.)

    Rinse and repeat. Or take your mountain of cash and retire.

  • It will happen. I remember 25+ years ago on slashdot the topic was companies outsourcing people from India to do IT jobs. The joke was "why don't the CEOs outsource themselves to Indians?" ... Today a bunch of CEOs (Microsoft, Google, Adobe, IBM, etc) are in fact Indian. Therefore, we can predict 25 years from now that CEOs themselves of public corporations would be AI. Humans will be taken out of critical decision making.

    "In three years, Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer syste

  • Record levels for last 2 years.

  • The literal easiest and most overpaid job in the world got a little stressful? Is it like the stress of all their underpaid employees who do all the real work and somehow take it all in stride so much better than these fragile CEOs?

    Yeah, sorry, zero sympathy. The average CEO makes $725,553/year. That is ridiculous. No CEO has ever done $725,553 worth of work in a year. No individual person ever has or ever will.

    • The ironic thing is that the CEO job isn't playing the game. It is getting qualified so one can be a participant in the game, and getting the company to be able to participate in games. It is sort of like in some countries, it isn't doing the work in the college, but getting into the college where all the testing and competitiveness is done.

      If it wasn't for that social aspect and getting to the top, I wonder how many C-level duties could be offloaded to a decent LLM.

      • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

        Ivy League schools. It isn't about the education; it's about the connections. The quality of the education in these schools is debatable. The quality of the people attending these schools is also debatable. The connections these schools allow you to form...not debatable, and statistically better for "professional" advancement than the education.

    • CEO is not the easiest job. It's the difference between operating a car and building a car. If a person who can operate a car, it doesn't mean they can build a car.
      These CEO quitters go through the motions, do "CEO like" things, yet never truly understand what's going on in the business.

      • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

        CEO is not the easiest job.

        Ok, maybe not the easiest job without any qualifiers. So, I'll adjust, it is the easiest job for the average amount of money they are paid.

        It's the difference between operating a car and building a car.

        Sure, except that the CEO is the one operating it, not building it. You can suddenly put a low-level worker in the CEO position and nothing would really change. You put the CEO in the low-level worker's position and the whole company comes to a standstill almost always.

  • They know which way the wind is blowing.

  • A while back, a large airline went through a bankruptcy/merger. As part of the return to business plan, the judge was to approve a $20m severance bonus
    for the outgoing CEO. The judge approved everything but the $20m severance, and the airline merger and exit from bankruptcy concluded.
    At the first board meeting of the new company, the new chairman of the board and CEO put forth a resolution to pay the $20m bonus to the now departed CEO. It was unanimously approved.

    The lesson here is that leading your compan

  • Be like Luigi.
  • I'd like to make a distinction between leaders that people follow voluntarily and those that are 'leaders' by dint of an org chart and people follow them because their livelihood depends on it.

    It only takes a few hundred dollars in filing fees with the state to become a CEO / executive.... not impressive by itself. Like anything else, there are good ones and bad ones, judge them not by their title but by their results.

    Regardless of one's position in a company, the test of any competencies is when things ar

  • If these CEOs are bailing because they see problems ahead then divesting from their companies would seem to be a winning strategy.

  • There's something to be said about leadership that sticks around even when things are tough.

    What's important to remember is that those on the bottom of the org rarely have the same choice in walking away when things get tough.

  • Don't they only stay 3-5 years now? They come in and make cuts that may be detrimental to security and/or the company in the long run, but what do they care. They won't be there for any consequences. It seems to be a game of perception rather than actual long term measurable results. So, they'll just come back when the "take credit game" can begin again.
  • Luigi had anything to do with it? Or the fact that more and more of the signs at the protests are explicitly against billionaires, and the huge rallies that Bernie and AOC drew in the most 47-voting states?

/earth: file system full.

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