A billionaire that looses half their net-worth is still a billionaire. They still hold more money than you can dream of, they still hold more power then you can imagine.
It is not the same for a billionaire to loose money as it is for you or me. To take a concrete example. Elon Musk could just close down Twitter right now, and waste away his 44 bn USD he spent on it. After that squander, he would still be the richest man on the planet.
Right but that’s got nothing to with consequences. You’re annoyed that the consequence is… the consequence. Instead of what? Some abstract punitive ideal?
You are correct on technicality, but you know I was speaking generally. Even so, a millionaire that still has 500 millions after they seriously screw up, still has a ton of money and power. The consequence is still minuscule next to me loosing half my money.
A real consequence would be them loosing everything except 5000 USD
idk. If this many people were to loose their jobs under my authority, I think I would at the very least loose my job. But perhaps there also ought to be a class action law suite, workers should be able to sue a negligent business leaders that costs them their jobs, similar how a shareholder can sue for lost profits.
But honestly a business leader that screws up so bad, should probably loose all their wealth, like 100%.
Such a policy would mean that the consequences of a risk going wrong vastly outweigh the benefits of success.
That would incentivize extremely risk-averse decisions by business leaders and lead to society-wide stagnation. The result would be far more suffering overall.
I think that doesn’t need to be a bad thing. This all depends on what risk behavior does in a societal context and how much a particular leader is actually contributing to the business.
We actually have a reason to believe that the standard risk attracted business is a net-negative for society. These businesses tend to rely on government bailouts when their risky behavior doesn’t work out, or they lay off a large number of people, or they cause massive environmental damage, etc. I much prefer a business that plays it safe and doesn’t risk our environment and our economy while maximizing the profits they give to their shareholders.
Secondly, there is no reason to believe that a CEO is any sort of supreme decision maker of a company. Perhaps a democratized workplace—where the workers have a say in whether the business should engage in a risky behavior—is better at evaluating the risk. If that is the case then a CEO dictator might not want to lead the business into a risky endeavor at since they might get sued if it goes wrong, but workers who have only their jobs to loose might vote to do exactly that.
I find the society-wide stagnation prediction lacking in imagination.
You'd have to prove negligence, which is practically impossible in this case - he bet on some technology, it didn't work out, that happens thousands of times all over. Also, I know this is not something you'd like to hear, but you are not entitled to be employed at any particular firm, and company owner does not owe you a fiduciary duty to continue your employment. Also, FB employees hardly could complain about being treated poorly - I heard 500k+ compensation packages for engineers aren't out of the ordinary there. Tell it to somebody who works in a factory for 50k and see if they would think you were mistreated, after earning more in you short while than some earn in their whole life.
> similar how a shareholder can sue for lost profits.
Only if there's negligence or fraud, which you have about zero chance to prove in this case.
> But honestly a business leader that screws up so bad, should probably loose all their wealth, like 100%.
Would you agree to lose 100% of you money each time you make a mistake? If not, why should he?
> If this many people were to loose their jobs under my authority, I think I would at the very least loose my job.
This doesn't seem logical. Companies aren't some static things. Especially social media companies, which usually have very short lives. A corrective, appropriate, action, in response to a changing market, could very easily be a reduction in headcount.
All evidence suggests Facebook has no future [1].
> But honestly a business leader that screws up so bad
What's your metric for screwing up? Is it short, medium, or long term? Should short term goals/profits be the only goal of a company?
> What's your metric for screwing up? Is it short, medium, or long term? Should short term goals/profits be the only goal of a company?
As a worker my metric is first and foremost about the worker. A company screws up if it fails to bring profits to the workers. Laying off 11,000 workers certainly falls under a big screw up by that metric. I know companies—such as charity/non-profits exists who have humanitarian goals, or even amusement, as their goals, however I don’t see Facebook there.
But we live in a capitalist society and most companies’ goals are profits for their shareholders. Facebook seems to have screwed that goal up as well. And instead of letting the person who lead the company into this failure pay the price of failing, they take it down on the workers... This seems quite unfair, and is even illegal in many (most?) countries.
> As a worker my metric is first and foremost about the worker.
I can't extract any meaning from this. Could you be more specific?
Maybe a scenario will help. What if the company becomes not profitable enough (there can be reason's that don't require leadership fault), and it will fail unless workers are let go? Do you let it fail, causing all to lose their jobs, or do you trim the fat, allowing some to continue?
I would assume you would want to look at the whole, more than the individual.
Please note the above happened to a company I worked for, during the last recession, and it was, very objectively, not the fault of the leadership.
In Facebooks case their owner is worth so much, he could give every layed of worker a million USD and it would only cost him a fraction of what he’s net worth. I don’t know your scenario but the recession was for sure a special time. Now companies are seeing record profits and are blundering it in stupid endeavors like the Metaverse, so I don’t think your case applies at all. But in any case, other countries—outside of a global recession—have laws against mass layoffs, companies usually declare bankruptcy if they are at this point, and their respective governments starts a salary insurance program where they pay the workers that lost their jobs for a set amount of time. If the bankruptcy is bad, and the leaders manage to take some money from it, they will go to court for the damages the bankruptcy causes.
If I try very hard to tease out the answer to my question, it seems that you're suggesting that bankruptcy would be preferred to layoffs, with the government providing temporary relief after everyone loses their jobs. This seems like a net negative, compared to some people losing their jobs, and the company possibly moving on to great success, with those remaining, and future, employees.
I apologize if I interpreted your response incorrectly, but it was, again, very indirect.
The purpose of my question was to help me understand your perspective, and to help you present some meaning to your statement "As a worker my metric is first and foremost about the worker."
The workers don’t vanish with the business. If the government provides enough relief these workers can organize around a new business that provides a similar service (maybe even buying the intellectual property and/or branding from the bankrupt estate) under a completely new leadership. Or if the business isn’t actually providing anything useful (like many on this thread are suggesting is the case with facebook) then these workers are probably better off finding new jobs (after being compensated from the failing business).
Facebook is extremely rich, facebook can afford to break apart their business and give part of it to those 11,000 workers. Heck facebook can even afford to keep those 11,000 workers earning 6 digits while being tasked with doing nothing. In either case, it would be in the interest of the worker. What is not in the interest of a worker is having a leadership that makes bad decisions, wastes the time of the workers, and then lays them off. This kind of behavior should not be rewarded.
I can only, as charitably as possible, interpret that as a confirmation that bankruptcy is preferred.
> The workers don’t vanish with the business. If the government provides enough relief these workers can organize around a new business
Starting from scratch is rarely an efficient, or possible, solution, especially anything with IP involved.
> after being compensated from the failing business
Were they not compensated for their time during employment? Wouldn't being compensated for the failing business require knowing the future? I'm not asking this negatively, I'm just trying to understand perspective. Have you ever worked for a startup, or been involved in a small/medium business that's not-yet profitable?
I think you would find extreme risk aversion in a system implemented like you describe, if the only option were continuous success or quick failure. Are there any areas of the world that prefer bankruptcy over headcount reduction, where we could look at the statistics?
It is not the same for a billionaire to loose money as it is for you or me. To take a concrete example. Elon Musk could just close down Twitter right now, and waste away his 44 bn USD he spent on it. After that squander, he would still be the richest man on the planet.