#ceos

CEOs aren’t so popular right now. To prove this, I can give you statistics on how much the American public hates them—they really, really do—or I can just ask you to remember the moment when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was killed.

I don’t blame people one bit for loathing CEOs. I think their rage is pretty logical. When my parents were born, a CEO earned about 20 times more than their workers. They now pay themselves 630 times more. CEOs have been talking out of both sides of their mouths, bragging about record-breaking quarters while wringing their hands when employees beg for really basic shit like a full headcount. They’re yanking back work-from-home opportunities, which they hypocritically still grant to themselves. They’ve gone all-in on AI designed to make their own workforce obsolete. They’ve kissed the ring of fascists… with tongue. And many work harder to cultivate a mythologized public image than to actually do good, and they get all pissy when people notice they’re full of shit.

In a time when most people live one medical crisis away from bankruptcy, CEOs live rarified lives that the rest of us can only dream about. Money is so cheap to them they can afford to rent whole cities for their weddings, build mega-mansions on private islands, work remotely from their private yachts, seek immortality with any ethically dubious medical treatment they like, and brush off the kinds of tax and legal troubles that would ruin anyone else.

…So, yeah, not a lot to love there!

All of this stirs up a question in my mind: does it have to be this way?

Do all CEOs have to be bloodsucking assholes? Are anger and hatred inevitable trade-offs for wealth and power? Or is it possible for one enterprising person to start a great American business and get rich without exploiting their customers and/or workers along the way?

Who Killed the Great American CEO?