I doubt SpaceX or Tesla would exist if they were controlled by a committee. Doing great things usually requires control by a single person who is able to say "screw it, we're going for X".
All companies once they reach a certain size (including Tesla, SpaceX) have a Senior Leadership Team which decides on the critical decisions affecting the company.
This personality obsession is really only perpetuated by people who haven't worked in business and don't realise just how much of a team effort it is.
Someone on this site mentioned Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle#Pournelle's_ir...
And the CEO is the counterweight to that oligarchic rule. You see this, for example, in the constant battles that kings wage against the nobility.
There is a really great possibility that america shoots it's future economic growth in the foot with something like this, just because it's future superstars companies are not led by their great founders.
May I present Steve Jobs, another obvious example? Ray Croc who built McDonald's from a single location into a world empire.
Steve Jobs at Apple is a perfect example, since it was a publicly traded company that Steve Jobs didn't control. However, he was still able to be an extremely effective leader as the CEO.
It's possible to be CEO, and exert control over a company without literally owning >51% of the voting shares.
A good leader can "control" a company without having legal control over it. That's exactly the point about Steve Jobs.
The assertion is that: It is possible to be a dictatorial executive CEO, without having 51% of the voting rights of the company. This is the corollary of "losing control of the voting rights of the company doesn't automatically imply that the company must be run by committee". Steve Jobs proves both of those assertions to be true.
But people like Avie Tevanian, Tim Cook, Bertrand Serlet, Bob Mansfield, Johnny Ive, Dan Riccio etc. all played critical roles in turning Apple around.
iPhone simply isn't a success without all of the above functioning at a high level.
But there's no doubt who was in charge and who set the direction. From everything I've read about Apple, it was Jobs who was in command, and everyone else followed.
Because it's never been the case that Steve Jobs was in charge and everyone just fell in line. It's always been consultative and has always been the leadership team making the decisions. It's in fact how most companies run.
Especially given Steve was not 100% during most of his time at Apple.
A senior leadership team without a key decision maker is fundamentally lost and seeks only self preservation through short term goals.
Here's another example: every government on Earth. All have a single key decision maker at the top. In democracies they can be kicked out, but they have total control while they're in power.
This isn't remotely correct.
a) All democracies I can think of are derived from the Westminister system where there are branches of government e.g. House/Senate who need to agree to get laws passed. Pretty far from total control as Biden is experiencing now.
b) Many democracies e.g. Australia don't have the PM/President be directly elected and instead are appointed by the winning party. Thus their power and control is limited to what is gifted by the party and can be withdrawn at any time at which point a new leader is appointed. Again pretty far from total control.
No, they don't. A system with a council with a chair with no significant additional decisionmaking power over other members is not unheard of.
For example, Bezos only owns 16% of the voting stock of Amazon, Musk only owns 22% of the voting stock of Tesla yet neither are in any danger.
How many shares of Apple did Steve Jobs control when he was the CEO?
This is just a ridiculous argument that companies can only succeed if the Founders/CEOs have absolute voting control. There are many examples of shareholders being more than happy to put their votes behind whatever the CEO wants as long as they believe in the CEO.
e.g. having 49% equity only requires ~2% of remaining shareholders to agree with any of your decisions.
If you're making remotely justifiable decisions, you're likely to get a decent chunk of shareholders supporting pretty much any position.
Also it's common to stack the board with allies who you can trust to vote in your favor/support your decisions.
So doesn't require much equity to have de facto control. But there will likely be a big difference in influence between, say, 10% and 20%
Also, it's worth considering that not everything great is good, so perhaps a braking or governance system (in the sense of an engine) is worth requiring on any enterprise sufficiently large to become a juggernaut.
> it's worth considering that not everything great is good, so perhaps a braking or governance system (in the sense of an engine) is worth requiring on any enterprise sufficiently large to become a juggernaut.
Yeah, let's just throw SpaceX in the trash heap. Nevermind that NASA, the organization run by committee, has failed to make space accessible and routine.
The "braking system" is already in place. It's the free market. Once the "juggernaut" fails to please the customers, it goes down the tubes.
Musk controls enough shares that he could get rid of Shotwell at any time, or reduce her power, but he chooses not to.
The fact that Musk can get rid of her at any time speaks for itself. It doesn't mean she's a committee, either.
I've long suspected that the reason McCartney and Lennon wrote great songs for the Beatles, and not-so-great ones afterwards, is because each was willing to tell the other when their work was crap. Afterwards, they just had sycophants who'd tell them every note they wrote was fantastic.