Comment by danjac | Hacker News Reader

Comment by danjac | Hacker News Reader

Some people here (there is a rude word for these cheerleaders of the feudal system, but I'll save that for less polite corners of social media) saying "he deserves a vacation".

A CEO is a leadership role - akin to being prime minister of a country, or captain of a ship.

Their ridiculously outsized rewards come with responsibilities, and they are supposed to lead by example. There was not much sympathy for the captain of an Italian cruise ship when he abandoned his post before his crew and passengers. Or a PM who partied through lockdown.

Likewise a CEO who lays off a huge number of employees and then fucks off to a Pacific island is not deserving of any sympathy, let alone nice sunsets and cocktails.

What should a CEO do? I dunno, but some CEOs took pay cuts, because they realized the impact on morale on their employees. Instead this guy just dumped more work on the employees left behind and went off on holiday.

I could not agree more. I feel like perhaps so many people here are CEOs themselves, or perhaps plan to be, or envision a day where they may be in a similar situation and therein lies some bias but I mean come on… sure, it is a “vacation” by technical standards. But it could not be more tone deaf. None of these CEOs care or value the peons that work for them. And if you delude yourself into believing they somehow do (or you yourself are one of these CEOs in question) then you lack empathy my friend. Ra ra corporatism is a plague and should be called out. He couldn’t wait a few months after things settled down? He ran, like a coward, call a spade a spade.

>… and they are supposed to lead by example

Not really, they are supposed to make the necessary decisions to steer the company to maximize its value to the shareholders. While this vacation might give a little negative blip for a day or two in the tech media and commentary space, this vacation is not going to do jackshit to the stock price, where the layoffs will have a positive impact.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com