--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Where is the evidence that CEOs are capable or > competent? Could it be that CEOs are rich and > powerful and that rich and powerful people vote > republican?
Bob, do you seriously think that it's easy to become the CEO of a major corporation? These guys are (in general) like Major League Baseball players. Obviously there are exceptions, but most of the time, even the worst one is so much better at what he does than the average person that it's barely possible to even understand it. That's true of almost any competitive system. Professional athletes are so much more physically capable than you or I that they might as well be a different species. An example. My roommate in college was a safety on the Harvard football team. This is a big long way from the pros, and safety is not a strength position. I've been a serious weight lifter for four years now - I have some idea of what is involved, and I'm a pretty strong guy compared to the average person. But Michael (my roommate) could bench 315 lbs and squat 550. Do you know what that looks like? The bar _bends over your back_ at 550 lbs. The difference between Michael and a real professional athlete is basically equivalent to the difference between him and me. Do you think it's _easier_ to become a CEO of, say, GE, than it is to be a professional athlete? I would argue that it is much more difficult, and it's not a random process. One reason GE has so convincingly outperformed other companies is its tradition of superb management. Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt weren't chosen by accident, and their performance echoes it. This isn't to say that all CEOs are competent - although I bet there isn't one in a Fortune 500 company who couldn't do a better job than any person on this list (myself very much included) by a very large margin. But the performance level involved is astonishingly high. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
