> There is personal risk. If the CEO does a poor job they might not be hired again or have other career impacts. There are numerous Fortune 500 CEOs that have a negative reputation that impacts their future earnings.

And if I do a shit job I might have trouble getting hired too, but I'm not paid millions for it.

Perhaps, but extremely unlikely. Who would know? I'm sure you can see there's a massive difference from a major CEO who is known publicly vs you switching jobs and not getting a reference callback at worst.

> If the CEO does a poor job they might not be hired again or have other career impacts

For some reason, I hear that they do fine all the time. Like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marissa_Mayer ?

Can you share an example of a CEO who was fired for incompetence (not criminal behaviour) that has had their career completely impacted by it?

I'm asking because Google isn't giving me answers.

> There is personal risk. If the CEO does a poor job they might not be hired again or have other career impacts. There are numerous Fortune 500 CEOs that have a negative reputation that impacts their future earnings.

This is true for all jobs...

Your work performance is not likely publicly listed with constant reviews from employees and shareholders, is it?

Your work performance is absolutely reviewed by managers and peers. Of course not to the extent of a CEO, but you're not getting paid what a CEO is and don't have the same impact so that's not surprising either. The point is all jobs have risks for performing badly, as they should.

Not to mention sometimes CEO's performing badly results in a golden parachute... quite a far cry from your grunt worker getting laid off with no pension or benefits.

If you go to a new job, who is telling them how bad you were at the last one? At most you might get a recommendation if you're good but it's rare to have anything follow you around unless it's major public news.

Golden parachutes are not about performance, it's about change of control like a company takeover or merger. It's very common and happens to many startup founders that get acquired. It's also not much different than severance which is offered to employees at large corporations.

If you get a new job is key. Serious jobs will contact past employers and look at gaps in your resume. If you are being laid off and have bad references it will absolutely negatively affect you. Sure you could get some job, but so could an EX CEO...

Golden parachutes are extra insulation for CEOs and their performance can definitely cause them to exit a company with a parachute that otherwise would keep them. It is like severance except wildly higher and more often than not there is no severance for average workwrs, especially nowadays.

Either way, originally you made a statement about a CEO having negative impacts from their performance, but the exact same thing is true of everyone. A public story of a CEO performing badly is just as ethereal as a recommendation from a past job. Neither is a death sentence or a golden ticket, it's just a job and if you do it poorly you will have negative consequences. Publicity could serve an exiting CEO regardless of performance, that is not hard to conceive. It's just a different level of job people aren't blind to that. But to say they take greater personal risk by being a CEO, I don't buy that, they take the same risk as everyone else. If you do well you get rewarded, if you do poorly you're future is negatively affected. There's really nothing to support it's so different for a CEO.