Are CEOs bad people?

slinxy said:
Ignoring the Tim Cook comment, CEOs and Directors don't get where they are by making friends.

Unless it's their own company which they have form and developed, it's fair to say they would know how to handle themselves in a "business" environment and have climbed over a few to get there.
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I'm sure they do a lot of networking
 
In my experience their personality can vary, but I have always felt you must be prepared to lose some friends to get to that position if that's what it takes.

I also find it annoying that - with the exception of football managers - CEO or exec director level roles are the only ones where even downright failure is rewarded with a gigantic bonus, followed by immediately securing an equivalent role in another company.
 
AlecR said:
Is Tim Cook a bad person because he allows his company to abuse his workers? Does he even know?
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Does he even know what? I'd assume that if you know something about Apple then he probably does too... though what are you actually referring to - I'm not sure any apple workers are being abused per say.... Are other workers further down the supply chain being abused - probably, they are in most areas of manufacturing.

Are CEOs bad people and thus should be blamed for all that is wrong with their company or are they just figureheads?
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Depends on the situation re: blame. They are ultimately responsible I guess.
 
Like most things clearly not all of group will fit into a single category.

The question should be, are CEOs statistically more likely to be terrible people than the base rate of the population. Based on the studies I've read regarding the traits of certain CEOs they did exhibit certain negative (related to lacking empathy etc) traits at a much higher rate than average.

The problem is the question in the OP is fundamentally flawed, as it's "Are CEOs bad people" which is definitive & doesn't take into account trends or averages.
 
I think a lot of time it's ignorance too,

I mean i've no idea i'm not a CEO.....but they are not going to know exactly what is going on in every little corner of the company (They should but if it's a huge company it's hard).

They have management for that. I think some CEO's just have the blinkers on then themselves are shocked at something going on within the company they didn't know about.
 
If you're running a huge company at the forefront of technology shaping all our futures competing against others who would do the same - I wouldn't hesitate to allow employees to work in bad conditions/pay/extended hours to come out on top.

Anyone who says otherwise are being a bit naive - at the end of the day if we're getting petty we can all call ourselves bad people for the amount of resources we use. If you live a comfortable life I can guarantee you're taking away from someone else in a third world country that is faceless.

I for one have a car, clothes I paid far too much for and a multitude of gadgets of which some I don't even use. I easily drop a few thousand a year on just enjoying myself - and this is the norm for most people in the UK in fact i'm fairly sensible compared to most of my peers. If every single person in the world had my life then we couldn't function - and I don't consider myself a bad person for taking away from some nameless/faceless person in the third world.
 
Mynight said:
In his case there's no escaping the news articles about the treatment of workers down the line. However if it hadn't been publicised I wouldn't expect him to know about it considering how large Apple are there's no way he could micro manage everything. It would be down to whomever is micro managing that aspect to inform him.
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I completely agree, however, as the head of the company it is his responsibility to ensure that his people are doing their jobs. Internally, that middle manager that didn't inform him that workers are being pushed to the brink of suicide will no doubt be punished, the buck stops with him, so he is responsible for owning any actions or inactions of his subordinates.
 
People get normalised to their environment and peers. If all of the other CEOs you meet (and your predecessor) are acting in the same way you will think nothing of it.

Suddenly you won't bat an eyelid at earning 400 times your other workers, or making huge profits off the back of quasi slave labour.

So no, I don't think Tim Cook is a bad person, but he is part of a flawed system and it's hard to see that from inside of it.
 
Many of them, particularly the ones that lead big companies in the US, are overpaid. They convince themselves they deserve the money they get, which can lead to delusions of grandeur, which sometimes turns them into bad people.
 
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