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Re:90 Cents of Every 'Pay-For-Performance' Dollar for CEOs A... by mpdehaan2 on Friday September 30, 2016 @12:04PM (#12613279)
In my case, I CAN do their job. They have a lot of support structures to delegate between. You may think you can't do their job, but you could, if you wanted - though getting there is a game of thrones of sorts, and you may not wish to play.

However, they can't do your job. Assuming you are a developer, they are making a living based on your work. Your work has equal value. Well, if you ARE doing hard work. If you are just sitting at a terminal, more ambition might be a good thing :) Cultivate it and you can get there. If you want.

We need not assume all leadership at the top is steering the entire ship, more so than steering parts of things, decisions trickling up as well as down, alongside information.

Re:90 Cents of Every 'Pay-For-Performance' Dollar for CEOs A... by dsacco on Friday September 30, 2016 @12:19PM (#12613380)
>>In my case, I CAN do their job.

Your overall point is diminished when you say things like this, because it comes across as arrogant. Without substantiating that, you're just pandering to everyone who holds the same ideology on CEO pay.

The way you describe it, technical jobs are the hardest in the world, and everything else is comparatively easy. You make it sound as though there is only one truly difficult discipline, which happens to be yours.

Furthermore, you're lumping the job duties of all CEOs together as though they all share a homogenous skill set you could pick up.

I'm unconvinced by an ethos that boils down to, "My work is hard because it's programming, their work is not because it's soft skills."

Re:90 Cents of Every 'Pay-For-Performance' Dollar for CEOs A... by mpdehaan2 on Friday September 30, 2016 @12:30PM (#12613473)
Missing lots of context.

(A) See profile. These are a lot of skills I HAVE picked up (B) I'm pretty non-technical these days. (C) when I'm suggesting hard work is hard work, I include everyone putting in hard effort - not just developers, but I do lean heavily in endorsing those who build the product.

I'm not saying I can run Goldman Sachs. I can run a few software companies a lot better than they are being run.

What I'm saying here is that CEOs are mortal. The more you know the more you know this. If you're just starting out you may not realize this, but as you start to experience various executives and know the decisions they make, and what the people under them do, with the experience over time - you just see the value that people should be valued more equally and the system should be fixed. To do this, we need the support of everyone in at least knowing the system is broken, not the defense of the broken system.

I am not a programmer these days. Hard work is hard work, and is mostly measured by the stress it inflicts on you. With practice, things get easier. But all people have value.

Re:90 Cents of Every 'Pay-For-Performance' Dollar for CEOs A... by jimbokun on Friday September 30, 2016 @01:24PM (#12613808)
I think, though, Ycombinator is premised on the idea technical people can learn a CEO's job much easier than vice versa. I'm pretty sure he says something very close to that in one of his essays. (Business being relatively easy to learn for a talented technical person.)
Re:90 Cents of Every 'Pay-For-Performance' Dollar for CEOs A... by sidlls on Friday September 30, 2016 @01:49PM (#12614008)
Yes, and that premise is controversial at best.
Re:90 Cents of Every 'Pay-For-Performance' Dollar for CEOs A... by jimbokun on Friday September 30, 2016 @03:35PM (#12614722)
True, but the YC success stories offer some anecdotal support for the idea.
Re:90 Cents of Every 'Pay-For-Performance' Dollar for CEOs A... by arvinsim on Saturday October 01, 2016 @11:25AM (#12618229)
That's the least that I expect. The implication that technical people can learn to hold a CEO position and do well is very anti-status quo.
Re:90 Cents of Every 'Pay-For-Performance' Dollar for CEOs A... by softawre on Friday September 30, 2016 @12:13PM (#12613335)
I think this is a bit naive. You seem like the software engineer type that thinks the company revolves around you, that both middle-managers and upper management are clueless, and you could do anybody elses job if you just put a weekend into studying it.

Getting a MBA, getting experience leading companies from the director level, then VP level, then CEO - that is valuable experience.

Re:90 Cents of Every 'Pay-For-Performance' Dollar for CEOs A... by WallowC_33 on Friday September 30, 2016 @12:19PM (#12613389)
Should probably read the posters profile
Re:90 Cents of Every 'Pay-For-Performance' Dollar for CEOs A... by mpdehaan2 on Friday September 30, 2016 @12:30PM (#12613478)
Again, see profile :)
Re:90 Cents of Every 'Pay-For-Performance' Dollar for CEOs A... by spullara on Friday September 30, 2016 @12:42PM (#12613562)
This is a really, really naive thing to say - bordering on completely delusional. The CEO job is so much harder than you think it is. As a VC I see a huge number of amazing engineers and very few amazing CEOs. They are incredibly hard to find and can change the outcome of a company from a complete failure to a wild success. You MAY be able to do their job but in my experience very few can do it competently.
Re:90 Cents of Every 'Pay-For-Performance' Dollar for CEOs A... by mpdehaan2 on Friday September 30, 2016 @02:36PM (#12614340)
Don't appreciate being called delusional. That being said, you underscore the point that many CEOs are not great -- which is exactly the point about overcompensation. Also, see my profile.

It's not wrong to tell everyone they may have the skills to match their current mediocre CEO that is pulling down the megabucks today. And believe me, a lot of mediocre CEOs are pulling down megabucks.

Being you are in the VC game, you are dealing with people in startups, where the compensation hasn't gone crazy away from things yet.

Finally, some of these views may be seen as socialistic. It matters what you value. In general, I have seen a lot of VC decisions that value capital ahead of ethics, and this is unfortunate.

Re:90 Cents of Every 'Pay-For-Performance' Dollar for CEOs A... by st3v3r on Friday September 30, 2016 @02:29PM (#12614289)
So why do they all get paid gangbusters?