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Comment by lefstathiou | Hacker News Reader

I respectfully disagree with the way you are positioning this.

The relative impact of a CEO, whose job is to set strategic direction and direct human (tens of thousands of employees) and financial capital (billions of dollars) at scale, dwarfs that of any of its individual employees and the vast swath of them combined.

Most relevant to you, the majority of the benefit of this 7x increase in value in 7 years is actually accruing to the the shareholders, not the CEO. And guess who are the top shareholders of Aetna?

#1 Blackrock #2 Capital World Investors #3 Vanguard #4 T Rowe #5 State Street Source: https://whalewisdom.com/stock/aet

All of these above are money managers of "the people's" 401k's and retirements funds. So you can rest assured that the majority of the benefit is going to the people for whom Aetna owes its success.

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> The relative impact of a CEO, whose job is to set strategic direction and direct human (tens of thousands of employees) and financial capital (billions of dollars) at scale

Or - according to my anecdotal experience - get out of the way and stop interfering with employees that know what they’re doing? I can think of several asinine “big plans” that just ended up burning huge stashes of capital and costing even more in opportunities that were heralded as the new Advent of Christ, “and don’t you dare be the naysayer!”

Are you advocating for a flat org structure and if so have you seen any examples of that succeeding at scale?

I think many people who argue against the value of great management have just never worked at a company with great management. Great managers are as awesome and empowering as bad managers are terrible and soul-destroying.

I don't think anyone is arguing that he has a more than average impact on the direction of the company. But, like any humble CEO would say, it's all about the people, the people below them, the people throughout the organization. So, while he deserves a decent bonus, fine, why does it need to be roughly thirty-three thousand times minimum wage. And this is just the bonus, he probably still has a very happy salary as well.

> why does it need to be roughly thirty-three thousand times minimum wage

Because that's what he negotiated with his employers.

> All of these above are money managers of "the people's" 401k's and retirements funds.

Numbers matter though. Most people don't own much capital and it's getting worse year by year. In other words, if I have a small 401k, I'd prefer the cheaper healthcare to a small bump in my meager savings (many don't have a 401k at all).

this is a great comment.

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