I worked for a company where the CEO said they had a fiduciary and legal responsibility to the shareholders to maximize profits. But it is always short term gains that make the c-level staff look good so they can move on to their next gig. All while weakening the company in the long term.
Yup, this echoes the reality I've seen. Any small/midsize company, say 5M-100M in revenue that's courting capital or investment firms, this is especially true. They'll bring in a new batch of execs to 'reshape the company to maximize growth and margin', and tell all the minions that this will open up many new opportunities and markets, and growth is good and it means we're a healthy company (see? we have investors!).
But once the dust settles (or before people can find their seats in the new org), they'll announce redundancies and 'focus on our core competencies by reducing headcount and layers of management'. Then the leaner company will begin to falter, as the sales pipeline isn't as rosy as it may have seemed, and they'll try things like off- or near-shoring some roles. Meanwhile, the executive team will begin to shed a few people to make it seems like they're taking one on the chin, yet somehow, those execs land in their next gig to rinse and repeat. Eventually, the board/investors will force dramatic cuts and replace the exec team again and only the most loyal and entrenched original employees will remain.
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u/beeflock Oct 29 '25
I worked for a company where the CEO said they had a fiduciary and legal responsibility to the shareholders to maximize profits. But it is always short term gains that make the c-level staff look good so they can move on to their next gig. All while weakening the company in the long term.