There's a human factor to all of this. An executive's day is not (typically) spent coding, or looking at spreadsheets, or analyzing forecasts. Those may be parts of an executive's job, but the bread and butter is working with people. Coordinating other's efforts - whether to maximize shareholder value, build a particle accelerator, make a movie, market useless crap to consumers, or whatever - involves a lot of dealing with people, successfully navigating complex interpersonal relationships, making compromises, etc. Some people really thrive on this and derive joy from the work itself. I personally find it exhausting, as I suspect do a large number of the people who frequent HN.

Do you know any hardcore gamers? Ask them if they want "Led successful assault against Foozle the Evil Wizard" on their gravestone. Maybe they do, and that's OK.

In other words, don't project your own idea of a fulfilled life onto other people. "Creating shareholder value" might just be the most important thing in the world to someone like Hurd. It's not your place to say he's wrong or misguided, as long as he doesn't do anything illegal to make it happen.

Agree with Flatline. Sometimes a person's job is their passion. We all know software developers who love to code, nights, weekends, for work...

The CEO job is the ultimate programming job. You are orchestrating people, money, processes, sales, product development, IT and more...

Probably why CEOs are paid multiples of a typical worker.

Very few can handle the job.