Not getting fired is not the same as isolation from consequences. People who make rational decisions and achieve results get opportunities to make more impactful decisions. People who don't get results don't get more opportunities - or maybe find themselves in a situation where the scope of their decisions (and blast radius) is limited. Firing is for misconduct or when someone has no value to offer. It's more of a spectrum than a binary thing.

I can't speak for how these particular executives were handled. I've never worked at a place where people were quickly fired for mistakes unless it was something extreme. It's usually based on track record rather than a single thing. Most employers understand that if they fired people for making mistakes they would run out of employees very fast. On the other hand, someone who learns from a mistake probably isn't going to do it again so you may have a better employee than a hypothetical replacement. It's also generally understood that people with a large scope of responsibilities have a large blast radius when things don't work out. It just comes with the territory and it's not exclusive to the executive suite.

If you're unwilling to fall on your sword and face material consequences for decisions that cause quantifiable harm the people who work for you or your customers, you do not belong in a leadership position imho, but that isn't where we are today. The people making these decisions will face no consequences for the harm they cause. Its likely they continue to be employed and receive generous compensation.

Workers get fired when they are wrong at much smaller scale, why not these people? They are not special, they are simply lucky and connected.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42639566 ("Pharaoh must signal, to shareholders, to a board, and to their peers. There will be no consequences for failure to adhere to this proclamation.")

Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42639417 - January 2025 (390 comments)

https://www.salesforce.com/company/careers/jobs/?search=soft... (724 results, as of this comment)

Lots of decisions impact lives. Some are literally life and death decisions. Sometimes the best decision possible with the information available at the time is going to turn out badly. Or maybe a bad decision achieves a good result.

That's why I'm saying to separate the process from the result when determining consequences. Someone who consistently exercises good judgment and who makes well-reasoned, thoughtful decisions is likely to achieve good results more often than someone who doesn't. But, event then, some things just don't work out and it impacts people's lives.

I would absolutely fire those idiots at Ford though. There's nothing wrong with trying to leverage AI. Personally, I like AI tools and I rely on them daily. But if someone lacks the judgment to figure out when a job should be performed by a human then they shouldn't be able to make decisions about how to use AI. These people are clearly out of their depth and just faking it. Clown show.

Yeah they didn’t like… migrate them to bad software they had to undo or something. They laid off hundreds of people due to overhyped products/trend chasing.

My life already was uprooted by those exact decisions... A couple times... The first guy fucked up so badly that every last one of us lost our jobs, including him. He was an unqualified moron who weaseled his way into a position where his bad decisions had major consequences. It was extremely frustrating. It happens. It will happen again. That's life.

A job doesn't usually involve a lifetime contract. And if it does, the severance required had better be incredible.

Nobody should "sacrifice future career prospects" just for a job. And if they do, it's hard to blame the employer on this, especially considering the premise implies they had choice in the matter.

I don’t think society is a monolith. Many of those who support your proverbial alimony are also against CEOs acting with impunity.

> As usual it's communism for the plebs and something entirely different for the capital wielding class.

Bad example. Ask Bezos how much he paid his wife after the divorce.