this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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That's what everyone is saying but this policy will only cost them from lawsuits, so it can't just be about money.
It will cost them in future earnings... Companies won't want to work on their platform if these policies are still in place... and many will never want to work with them again since they've shown their hand.
That is what makes me think there's something more to this.
I think rival companies might groom CEOs that get hired by their competitors but whom, secretly, are paid by the rivals to destroy the companies from within.
Perhaps I'm wrong but that's the only explanation I've been able to come up with that makes any sense to me.
The CEOs don't need to be paid by other companies. All a competing company needs to do, is to convince some company's board members to hire a CEO with a track record that they know will tank the company... maybe through indirect lobbying, maybe by hinting they want to hire them because it's "such a valuable CEO"... and bam!
CEO ruins company, then bails on a golden parachute, and you only had to spend whatever it took to mislead the competing board.
(I've seen it done to tiny companies with as few as 20 workers, it's surprisingly easy to convince a board to hire someone who will destroy everything)
What's the point to do this ?
To destroy the competition.
How does one insulate a company from corrupted CEOs?
Technically that's what a board of directors is for. They are the ones who can axe a CEO and hire another.
Yet they're not capable of sussing out bad actors before hiring them, so how is a board a good system?
It's good on paper, so long as a critical number of them aren't bad actors. You kinda got the same problem with US politics at the moment. It works until it doesn't, like everything else.
It seems clearly nothing works.
Oh, plenty of business "geniuses" make some pretty boneheaded moves, especially when they feel a need to try to produce huge growth after saturating a market, or if their business results somehow fall short of some need (either actually losing money, or some arbitrary self-imposed "goal" not being hit).
Currently there's an epidemic of businesses making some pretty dubious long term decisions for the sake of trying to prop up numbers amidst a receding market reality. Recessions are, in part, a self-fulfilling prophecy, where whatever impetus exists, it's exacerbated by every participant screwing things up further.