I heard a good quote a while back: "Technology is dominated by those who manage what they don't understand". If someone from a management or business background comes into a tech company, all they'll be looking at is the bottom line, not what really gets them to the bottom line. It may be naive, but in my view the main role of management should be to support the people on the chalk face who actually produce whatever it is the company sells. Shareholders may come and go, but without a productive workforce, the only way is down. It seems these days the best way to bump up the share price by a few cents is not to announce a new product, but to announce layoffs. You'll probably see the stock drop back to what it was again in a few weeks (or days), but your staff are gone for good, and if you've ass-rammed them just to give the investors proof that you're "doing something" about the stock price, then they ain't coming back. "Remember, layoffs are for life, not just for NASDAQ".
Where I work (and I suppose in most companies), they have a stock options scheme we call the "golden handcuffs", where you get given X amount of shares for doing well, but you can't divest them for Y no. of years. If all packages were like this, then you'd get a lot less "locust manager" behaviour i.e. come in, gut the company in order to artificially inflate the stock price so joe shareholder is happy for a few days, and get out with a nice big wad in the back pocket before things hit the wall. If the first thing a new manager was told was "Well, if you're succesful we'll give you lots of shares, but you can't divest any of them for 5 years", then you'd see a lot less Bernie Ebbers around.
Slashdot Mirror
Asshat? That conjures up several mental images, none of which are really appealing.......
I heard a good quote a while back: "Technology is dominated by those who manage what they don't understand". If someone from a management or business background comes into a tech company, all they'll be looking at is the bottom line, not what really gets them to the bottom line. It may be naive, but in my view the main role of management should be to support the people on the chalk face who actually produce whatever it is the company sells. Shareholders may come and go, but without a productive workforce, the only way is down. It seems these days the best way to bump up the share price by a few cents is not to announce a new product, but to announce layoffs. You'll probably see the stock drop back to what it was again in a few weeks (or days), but your staff are gone for good, and if you've ass-rammed them just to give the investors proof that you're "doing something" about the stock price, then they ain't coming back. "Remember, layoffs are for life, not just for NASDAQ". Where I work (and I suppose in most companies), they have a stock options scheme we call the "golden handcuffs", where you get given X amount of shares for doing well, but you can't divest them for Y no. of years. If all packages were like this, then you'd get a lot less "locust manager" behaviour i.e. come in, gut the company in order to artificially inflate the stock price so joe shareholder is happy for a few days, and get out with a nice big wad in the back pocket before things hit the wall. If the first thing a new manager was told was "Well, if you're succesful we'll give you lots of shares, but you can't divest any of them for 5 years", then you'd see a lot less Bernie Ebbers around.