This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
It's not about driving the ability to make money, it's about value over replacement employee.
A bad barista can ruin a lot of customer's days, piss people off, probably cause thousands of dollars of damage before someone notices.
A bad CEO can destroy a hundred million dollars of value, maybe even a billion, before the board removes them.
At those stakes, justice is not even close to the point. It's rational to pay that much because the swing in value caused by that single person is immense. The difference between a good CEO and a bad CEO is easily $100M just by itself.
A lot more than that, if they are Steve Ballmer. The difference between Ballmer's and Nadella's Microsoft is exhibit A in the case for "Some of our most talented people should be non-founder executives at legacy companies."
More options
Context Copy link
It would be rational if there was any evidence that paying that much gave you any meaningful increase in how good your CEO is. But I don't think there is.
The evidence is that the company still exists.
I can't stress this enough -- a bad CEO can destroy the entire thing as an ongoing concern. The companies with those CEOs literally don't exist any more.
Insert the picture of the military planes coming back with the bullet holes.
No, I'm not saying that a bad CEO can't destroy the company. I'm saying that we do not have reason to believe that paying so much gets you a good CEO. Notably, even a CEO who destroys the company tends to get paid a bonus for his trouble. That is the exact opposite of rational, and so we would expect to see such clauses get eliminated, but if I'm right (and CEO compensation is driven by good old boys helping each other out) it is completely expected.
The reason to believe that paying so much gets you a good CEO is that companies that want to continue existing care about costs, and so if large compensation packages for CEOs didn't attract good CEOs, market forces would pressure them to offer lower compensation. So the fact that we continue to see successful companies pay CEOs a ton is reason to believe.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link