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Most CEO have stock options so in theory they have skin in the game. This however does not make them rational or competent actors. Maybe skin in the game isn't all that it is being made out to be, it is probably necessary but not sufficient to be a effective business leader. Honestly this article feels strangely malicious, I would not call the execution of more then 300 soviet officers an example of skin in the game, but just cruel intimidation by Stalin.

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The “skin” is not related to the value of the product they deliver or the happiness of the employees or the long term viability of the company. So it can hardly be valuable “skin”.

Particularly as Stalin himself wilfully ignored intelligence about the imminent Operation Barbarossa, for example from the agent Richard Sorge.

And he executed hundreds of capable officers in the 1930s, replacing them with incompetent yes-men, which greatly degraded Soviet defences.

In Western corporate terms, Stalin would be a boss who carried out mass layoffs of his most competent employees, ignored the threat of a competitor, and only survived due to the hard work and sacrifice of his remaining underlings, while taking credit for their work. All in all, he'd probably be quite a good modern American CEO.

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