The point being made is that there are no negative consequences to being responsible, so it's an empty statement. It doesn't even mean anything. They're making the decision because they're being rewarded for it by maintaining a certain level of profitability in the financial reporting game.
>The point being made is that there are no negative consequences to being responsible
What "negative consequences" would you like to see? You want to see executives fired over something like this? How do you think that would affect future hiring practices?
Personally, I would like to see C-Level executives financially responsible for their decisions. Instead of firing a percentage of his staff, he should be sent a bill. With great reward should come great risk; at least thats how it works for the rest of us.
Is that true? If you make your SF salary of >$200k and manage to down production, are you sent a bill for lost revenue?
I don't think so. In fact, since CEOs are (usually) mostly compensated in stock and their job is to create shareholder value, their income is likely far more related to their performance than for your average engineer.
If you cost the company enough money, you will be let go. It is true that you probably will not be sent a bill (although that can happen depending on the circumstances).
The C-Level executive suite, however, will see no repercussions, even though, in reality they are ultimately responsible for overseeing the hiring, training and compliance processes. Even when there are shareholders and a board of directors to answer to (which isn't always) consequences are rarely seen.
In fact, I don't see how they could ever truly be held responsible for anything that goes wrong with the company, but they sure do win (with bonuses and related comp) when things go well while employees usually do not.
It's so wild seeing people making claims like these on hn, considering people here also get treated similarly. Are you going to get fired from your job for minor mistake? Would you go work for a company that will fire devs over minor issues? Why should CEO be treated differently?
I'm not sure what's wild about it. As far as I've seen, what I said is entirely true.
- If someone very low on the totem pole (ex. factory worker) is late a few times, they're far more likely to be fired than someone higher up.
- If a low/mid level manager at a company screws up a project so bad that a bunch of people under them get layed off, they're far more likely to lose their job then a VP that does the same.
The point isn't that everyone should get laid off for every mistake. The point is that, the higher up you are, the less likely you are to face _any_ consequences at all for any mistakes. And it's also not a certainly; just a probability.
It's wild because it's completely separated from realities of the business. If you fired CEO over any minor mistake (overhiring sucks, but for CEO it is a minor mistake), the company would die much sooner, because people wouldn't want to work there. You as a developer also are quite high on that pole, and you (probably) won't get fired if you bring down prod for a moment due to mistake in migrations, why should CEO be treated differently?
me> The higher up on the totem pole you are, the less it seems to matter how well you actually do your job.
you> If you fired CEO over any minor mistake
Do you see the disconnect here? At no point did I call for a CEO to be fired over a minor mistake. Rather, I pointed out that, no matter the size of the mistake, the higher up you are the smaller the repercussions. You are responding with what is a perfect example of a straw man argument.
To be clear; no, I don't think a CEO that makes a small mistake should be fired. But I also don't think that a CEO that causes the downfall of a major company should walk away and into the arms of the next company, doing the same job, for just as much (or more) money. And, in between those two, there's a large area where repercussions are currently few and far between.
> What "negative consequences" would you like to see?
None. But if taking responsibility for someone else's injury just involves saying that you're taking responsibility, it's nothing but playing with words.
If your grandmother got sick, I don't think you should be punished. But if you take responsibility for your grandmother getting sick, in English people will expect that you're at her house taking care of her until she's well.
Considering that thousands of people just lost their jobs through no fault of their own, one more who did screw up massively doesn't seem like it should change much, right?
"I don't regret what I did, I don't think it was wrong, I would do it again, I haven't been caught BUT I take full responsibility for the death of the victim."
2. Being held accountable for something, and facing its consequences (e.g. compensating for damage)
It's possible that someone can cause something while avoiding its consequences, deferring the responsibility of making up to someone else. This usually happens due to asymmetry of information or power.
That said, we cannot say definitely in this particular instance that Sundar could have foreseen the financial circumstances or economic crisis of any kind, and it's also possible that Sundar might resign or get fired in the future as a consequence. Still, one can argue that the phrase "I'm taking full responsibility of [...]" is a bit overused in general, and used in a rhetorical manner without actually meaning it.
