Real-world - the whole "CEOs bear responsibility" thing went out of fashion decades ago.

When the AI screws up - the Board will loudly blame it, then watch as the SecTeam installs a new AI CEO.

Meanwhile the CEO's golden parachute deploys, ensuring that the suffering from their mistakes is minimized, unlike the consequences felt by everybody laid off because of them.

CEOs are consequence avoidance machines.

What? The former CEO is fed to an industrial equipment shredder, under the close supervision of Licensing Auditors from CEOware, Inc.

> CEOs dont do work

It takes a very convoluted definition of "work" to be able to say that CEOs aren't doing any work.

Being a CEO (a real one of a real company of more than a few people that has real customers) is a huge amount of work.

If CEOGPT does a bad job you can replace it with Claude.

but CEOGPT doesn't care if it retains or loses the job, it may just randomly lead company to failure just because someone messed up temperature parameter when setting it up

That's how the free market works. AI CEOs that deliver value to their shareholders will thrive while those that don't won't. Trust in the wisdom of the market and everything will be fine.

and put lives of employees, customers, vendors, and shareholders at stake??

sounds like a gamble

> it may just randomly lead company to failure

As opposed to sometimes deliberately leading companies to failure by mortgaging the company's future so they can maximize short term profits, including their bonuses, then leaving before it all bursts into flame?

if CEO is extracting short-term profits, you can be 100% sure it is because Shareholders have demanded him to execute this exact plan.

if the company has failed after squeezing short-term profits, there could be a chance that failure was inevitable, and CEO just salvaged and cashed out what was possible and left debtors/employees/suppliers on the hook, while shareholders (CEOs boss) got paid in $$$

Could you provide a few examples of CEOs bearing responsibility in practice?

And just to be clear: I don't think we should be considering paying yourself an obscenely high exit bonus after you fucked up as "bearing responsibility".

> Could you provide a few examples of CEOs bearing responsibility in practice?

Two of the companies I've worked for have had their CEOs fired/replaced for poor performance.

One of them was also mismanaging finances and spending for his own gain. It became common knowledge in the local investor community. He was never able to return to being a CEO again, except for some unknown company in Europe where he was briefly a remote CEO.

If you want more public examples: Sam Bankman-Fried, Elizabeth Holmes, etc. are literally in jail. Many public companies also ditch their CEOs publicly, and most don't recover to the same career level. You just don't hear about those stories much because they don't generate rage-clicks the same way another dozen articles about Jeff Bezos or Sam Altman will.

> Two of the companies I've worked for have had their CEOs fired/replaced for poor performance.

Ah. Like employees.

I think I should have been more clear with my "fucked up" definition. What I was referring to is not criminal misconduct which you seem to be focusing on but rather failing as a leader/executive in a business sense.

CEOs lose jobs all the time, yes they get to receive golden parachute - but it is a cost of hiring a CEO. Like severance.

Same way no good FAANG engineer would sign up without good pay package like base+RSU+bonus - same way no good CEO would sign up for a high risk CEO job without golden parachute.

Because it could well be their last job if they fail. or last good CEO job.

Imagine having only one shot at working as Engineer and without ability to jump ship because all your actions are public and you are associated with your company success

> same way no good CEO would sign up for a high risk CEO job without golden parachute

This doesn't make sense

The golden parachute means that these jobs are not "high risk" at all

Oh no you got fired and wound up with a severance package that is big enough that it could set you up for life and you can retire right now? The horror!

That's not risk. Someone working a minimum wage job living paycheque to paycheque is taking more risk when they take a sick day than any CEO with a golden parachute contract ever takes in their whole life

Thanks for replying but I think you might be confused a little. There's no comparing a FAANG engineer with a CEO. The former won't be able to live comfortably for the rest of their lives with an engineer's severance package. The latter absolutely can.

you are confused if you dont understand the reason why CEOs have big severance while engineers have smaller severance

Maybe, care to elaborate further?

CEOs dont have an option to jump ship. All their actions are scrutinized heavily since they are public. By accepting CEO job they accepting a risk this could be their last CEO job ever, if they mess up. Thats why they require golden parachute.

If you want to hire CEO, that means your company is in trouble and desperately need good steward. You want to hire strong CEO, but he is taking a risk that he demands to be compensated for in case you change your mind want to change CEO again.

with engineers - risk is smaller, plenty of engineers just jump ship to another company (and many even get a pay bump) after failing at current job. Thats why severance is smaller than CEO

This makes no sense. CEO job carries zero risk if there's a golden parachute attached to it.

risk is not zero, since golden parachute is usually less than potential lifetime earnings as CEO (for top tier candidate).

CEO may get $20 min as severance, but would potentially lose hundreds of mils had he not taken this job, and instead pursued another job that lasted for longer

There are tonnes of CEOs that fuck up and still get jobs as CEOs at other companies. They all go to the same private schools/universities, they've all done MBAs and they all continue to socialise through their careers.

Same situations with politicians and police forces, they create a club whereby all members are unduly supported.

what fantasy land are you living in? Look at the auto industry, many examples of companies covering up defects which lead to deaths - how many CEOs are in jail? What about the tabacco industry? The company may get fined and please don't try to make some round about argument like that hurts the CEO, even if the company gets fined they're still living in their castles.

Fined, but yet still posting yearly gains. Fines would only work if it meant being fined would resolve to them having to show stock holders that they experience negative growth because of it. Not saying that is the ultimate solution, but its the only way to do it if people are not gonna go to jail. The fines have to be so massive, the company can't post positive growth.

>AI cannot bear responsibility, so who is going to take a blame if AI does a very bad job?

Didn't seem to be a question any AI proponent asked when they said that AI can do the job of a lawyer. Not that I disagree with you.

The humans

I mean, wouldn't it just do what human CEOs do?

Namely, lay off an bunch of employees then talk about "difficult headwinds" or some such thing?