> CEO of a large public company who fails is likely to end up with a ruined career.

Except for the ones that go to prison, that doesn't really seem to happen; people who fail as CEOs tend to turn up in very well compensated executive (not necessarily, but still often, chief executive) positions elsewhere.

The executive class that populates boards and C-suites (and overlaps significantly with the major investor class for whom ultimately boards and C-Suites work) is heavily networked and anyone who fails in a mere job in that class usually had plenty of connections willing to help them get another similar one largely independent of merit.

Does that really happen? The CEO of my company left his last company in disgrace. His 'ruined career' means he makes 15M a year instead of 20M. I need that kind of 'ruined career'

Same here. In fact, the very Googleable person that I call CEO today took > $5 million in severance from the last 2 companies he fucked up. I've been hearing this story my entire life, now I have the privilege to be old enough to see it first hand. What a treat.

Really? When has that happened?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hayward

>Anthony Bryan Hayward is a British businessman and former chief executive of oil and energy company BP. His tenure ended on 1 October 2010 when he was replaced by Bob Dudley following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He has been chairman of Glencore Xstrata since May 2014.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Legere

>John Legere (born June 4, 1958) is an American businessman who is the chief executive officer and former president of T-Mobile US. His leadership at Global Crossing was controversial, which included large executive bonuses and filing for bankruptcy.

>Really? When has that happened?

If you're talking on the scale of a non-founder CEO who is making $15 million per year, it happens all the time. There just aren't that many public companies that pay that much. The headline in this story comes from an analysis of the 350 largest publicly traded companies. A fired CEO can't just go down the street and find another $15+ million dollar salary ruining another company. Two examples would be Melissa Meyer and Ellen Pao. Both of whom are basically unemployable outside of board memberships.

"outside of board memberships", that six-figure sinecure with two annual meetings and a rubber stamp? Heaven forbid they be forced to stoop to THAT level.

But they're not six-figure salaries.According to [1] average base pay is $25,000. Bigger companies do pay more, into the $200,000 range, but it's not like failed CEOs are asked to join boards of huge companies.

1. https://work.chron.com/director-corporate-board-paid-19587.h...

Unemployable with millions of dollars to invest in whatever it is they want. It's not all roses, but it's not as if their lives are over.

But that's not how it works at all?

They almost always get a very good C-suite job after and remain on boards with influence

Average joe getting terminated from a job will not receive references from that employer. References are critical part of most professional interview process.

When we were interviewing CEOs for my company, one of the things that surprised me was the interesting set of backgrounds we encountered. One, for example, had previously pled guilty to a federal indictment. We didn't hire him, and he went on to be CEO of another startup.

I think the CEO career risk, excepting gratuitously bad behavior at the wrong time (see Mark Hurd), is actually quite low and very, very overstated.

Re: "CEO...who fails is likely to end up with a ruined career."

Maybe as a future CEO, but I'm sure they'll have plenty of offers for upper-middle management and still be in the 5% to 1%. They may have to sell half their beemers or something, the horror.

>I CEO of a large public company who fails is likely to end up with a ruined career.

So might Joe worker. Where's his compensation package?