Absolutely, I've long-doubted the usefulness of a CEO vs the theory of a self-organizing co-op.
ElevenLathe [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Workers ultimately have a job because they are useful to management, and management have a job because they are useful to ownership. Top management has insane levels of compensation as a strategy by ownership to alight management's interests with their own, by turning them into owners. If there is going to be a management layer at all, for example the proposed "A-suite", then their compensation will balloon for exactly the same reasons.
CxO salary isn't the market clearing price for the labor these people perform, it's more like power-leveling your friends in an RPG so that they can quest with you. Owners want their managers' interests to be with capital, so they have to give them some.
forgotaccount3 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
> Top management has insane levels of compensation as a strategy by ownership to alight management's interests with their own, by turning them into owners. If there is going to be a management layer at all, for example the proposed "A-suite", then their compensation will balloon for exactly the same reasons.
That is not correct.
Owner's don't align top management's interests with the owner's interests by giving them 'insane levels of compensation', they do it by giving the managements compensation in the form of shares of the company. It's not the volume of the compensation that aligns their interests, it's the type. Otherwise the 'top management' could just invest in the competitor and torpedo their own company making multiples of the original cash compensation as clients leave for the competitor.
113 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
> Workers ultimately have a job because they are useful to managemen
Workers have a job because their labour produces value
spwa4 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
True, but you should be more cynical. When push comes to shove, every famous court case between management and owners has gone the same way: management wins, owners lose (meaning when owners wanted to turn back a management decision, courts refused to do it, or when asked to actually pin that responsibility CxOs always whine about on them, financially)
Why is management paid so much? Because they can make the argument "give me more, or I'll destroy the company", and actually be believable.
THAT is why it's so critical for CxOs to be aligned with owners' interests.
JohnMakin [3 hidden]5 mins ago
> Everyone agrees: AI is coming for the developers. The $200,000-a-year engineers writing CRUD apps and maintaining CI pipelines. The line workers of the knowledge economy. Trim them. Automate them. Celebrate the efficiency gains. Watch the stock pop
I very much do not think everyone agrees here, and using the Block layoffs as an example is pretty poor reasoning. It's the same kind of blind, "believe and report exactly what the companies say about these things, regardless of their incentives in saying these things" type of breathless clickbait tech journalism that is becoming extremely exhausting to wade through.
There's probably a good discussion in here somewhere but the way these flimsy arguments are presented as absolute fact is a really annoying style to read, personally.
This author wrote basically the complete opposite view barely more than a few months ago which makes it read even more like clickbait slop:
I'm not seeing a scenario where a CEO decides to replace themself. But if this is trolling, I fully support that.
louwrentius [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I agree, fire the CEO. But I have a slightly different take that doesn't involve AI. What if we indeed get rid of the entire C-suite?
Even better still: why are companies and orgs hierarchical? Why is there always a - for lack of a better word - dictator in charge? AI CEO is still an AI dictator.
We are permitted to vote, but democracy in everyday life, that's a bridge too far, chaos, riots in the streets, cats and dogs living together.
Maybe there are too many 'temporary embarrassed billionaires' here on HN, but you have more in common with the average bum in the street than any of 'that' class.
It's time that we as a people extend democracy towards the workplace and operate like a cooperation, working on the base of consensus. This is not a new idea, but it won't give you a chance to become a billionaire, and that's exactly the point.
cmeacham98 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
What you're describing is called a "worker cooperative" and they are somewhat rare but do exist already in real life.
hellcow [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Are they rare? Aren’t credit unions worker cooperatives? Insurance is often structured this way, and I’ve heard of farmer collectives too. I do photography as a hobby and there’s all kinds of photography collectives, including Magnum which is incredibly famous in that world.
HN.zip
CxO salary isn't the market clearing price for the labor these people perform, it's more like power-leveling your friends in an RPG so that they can quest with you. Owners want their managers' interests to be with capital, so they have to give them some.
That is not correct.
Owner's don't align top management's interests with the owner's interests by giving them 'insane levels of compensation', they do it by giving the managements compensation in the form of shares of the company. It's not the volume of the compensation that aligns their interests, it's the type. Otherwise the 'top management' could just invest in the competitor and torpedo their own company making multiples of the original cash compensation as clients leave for the competitor.
Workers have a job because their labour produces value
Why is management paid so much? Because they can make the argument "give me more, or I'll destroy the company", and actually be believable.
THAT is why it's so critical for CxOs to be aligned with owners' interests.
I very much do not think everyone agrees here, and using the Block layoffs as an example is pretty poor reasoning. It's the same kind of blind, "believe and report exactly what the companies say about these things, regardless of their incentives in saying these things" type of breathless clickbait tech journalism that is becoming extremely exhausting to wade through.
There's probably a good discussion in here somewhere but the way these flimsy arguments are presented as absolute fact is a really annoying style to read, personally.
This author wrote basically the complete opposite view barely more than a few months ago which makes it read even more like clickbait slop:
https://boringops.sh/articles/its_the_humans_stupid/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
Even better still: why are companies and orgs hierarchical? Why is there always a - for lack of a better word - dictator in charge? AI CEO is still an AI dictator.
We are permitted to vote, but democracy in everyday life, that's a bridge too far, chaos, riots in the streets, cats and dogs living together.
Maybe there are too many 'temporary embarrassed billionaires' here on HN, but you have more in common with the average bum in the street than any of 'that' class.
It's time that we as a people extend democracy towards the workplace and operate like a cooperation, working on the base of consensus. This is not a new idea, but it won't give you a chance to become a billionaire, and that's exactly the point.
or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igalia (can't find any discussion related to their coop model - there is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37799973 without any comment )