I'm just assuming it is a defense strategy to make him look like this bumbling idiot who could have never been aware of what was going on and therefor wasn't masterminding it all, or didn't create the concept of all the sheltering and shadiness.

CEO's these days are definitely more "business rockstars" than anything else. Delivering the company's "message" and "vision" is what they do.

the standards were never that high for some companies:

Examples:

Don Rumsfeld was CEO of Searle... (did he have any industry experience?) http://www.wnho.net/...ory_of_aspartame.htm (read the section on 1981 and you might get a clue as to why he was a CEO)

Bill Daley (FMR commerce secretary/brother of Chicago's mayor) was president of Ameritech - Did he have any experience in telecom?

Would either of these two know anything about finance and accounting?

http://www.theyrule.net/2004/tr2.php

Rumsfeld and Daly didn't need to have intimate knowledge of aspartame or telecom. They know how to run and lead large organizations, which is a different skill. Like 'em or hate 'em, that's what they do.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

The qualifications look basically like this. You have to be a white male (though sometimes they will let a woman or minority slip through) who would like nothing better than to wear a suit, even on Sundays, and you have to get a bunch of fellow suit-wearing white guys (a la Dick Grasso's board of directors) to agree that you deserve an obscene amount of money regardless of your abilities and performance. In fact, you are the model CEO if you can be paid more for your failiures. The more the company fails to meet its numbers, the more you cook the books, the more you lay off the staff, the more you get. How is that for an answer to your question?

"How is that for an answer to your question"

What question?

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

I think he meant Wolfwood's question.

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CEOs these days are nothing more than corporate cheerleaders. Most of them got thier jobs, not because they are superstars or because they have a corner on brilliance. Most of them are successful apple polishers. They know how the game is played and they know how to identify and network with the brilliant people in their organizations. They can then sell the brilliant ideas of their peers to upper management. Hence, they get fast tracked to the top.

The cheerleading comes to play when they are selling their companies to the stock analysts, when they are pumping their employees about how wonderful things are with record profits, but we're stiffing you on your bonuses or merit increases, or worse, we didn't make plan so, we're going to sever 10% of our workforce.

The CEO of a company I used to work for has about a 3 golf handicap. Either the guy is a naturally gifted athlete or he spends many hours on the golf course. I form my opinion on senior management based on how they carry themselves. This guy didn't have an athletic bone in his body. I suspect that the shareholders were paying the tab for his golf lessons as well.

RB

Unfortunately, some CEO's are like politicians. It is not what you know, but who you know. If you have the right contacts and can bring business to the company you can get the job.