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Comment by option | Hacker News Reader

Their CEO needs to go, he has no tech vision

No, he has money vision. They're at an all time high right now.

He's not going anywhere

We'll see how short-term thinking works out for them in a decade. "Rich but irrelevant" isn't a good place to end up. But at least shareholders in 2024 got a percentage more in gains.

Just like IBM, outperforming the S&P by -4500% overall since the 1960s.

IBM's stock hasn't even tripled since Google's IPO in 2004. You buying?

Tech CEOs seem to have realized the really short-term wins drive stock prices up. Feel especially bad recently. Feels like we're going to see crumbling software soon

They've just turned into regular companies.

CEO helps profits and ensures stock price. Engineers only spend money. Who should go?

I know, /s, but:

If you have someone who aimlessly kills products and fires people but lacks vision or a decent plan, you could find someone much cheaper, and save tens of millions on executive compensation. If operating margin is so crucial now, then it seems cutting pay of top executives is the easiest way to achieve that with the least damage to the company.

Firing people actually helps raising a stock price [0].

0 - https://money.com/tech-layoffs-affect-stock-prices/

Raising stock price makes so many people happy than firing a few wealthy individuals does some small harm for the greater good of many.

> so many people

Meaning shares holders, of course.

Improving operating margin helps raise the stock price: the company then can at least temporarily produce the same revenue for lower cost. But firing employees is only one way to do it. Executive compensation is now so bloated that reducing it might produce the same gain as from firing hundreds of employees, with less impact to future growth (talent is retained).

Look at Tesla and Nvidia in recent years. Exciting innovations can cause stock prices to soar completely independently of the company's fundamentals.

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