This is the age of the CEO. A lot of young hotshots are becoming masters of their domain before they even get a drivers license - well exaggeration but you get the point.
Many are born as tech wonderkids or with a knack to sell almost anything to a gullible public. The public for their part has started retarding. Hence their ability to buy anything that gets advertised on television. They buy it because its on TV.
Then there are those companies that start with a large bang only to fizzle as the stupor wears off the gullibles. Many a name comes to mind. Now the losers are the millions who invest in this enterprise.
Not to put too fine a point but that brings to light the AGE of the CEO. Is it fair to assume that there is something in the old adage - I have been round the block? OR that I have seen a few too many seasons than you?
Admittedly the prototype to production lifecycle has compressed with advances in technology and supply chain improvements where a new wave toaster can be assembled in China before your flight gets there. But that does not mean that the world really needs a new wave toaster or for that matter an advertisement for the same.
So going back to the Age question - do you think that the Chief who is essentially a kid out of school or dropped out of school (school being a subjective metaphor for experience although they can be unrelated) is really a Chief?
The financial media and companies that run the money machine including large banks are all for chasing the next sexy thing and in the process make a hero out of the underdog. Granted a lot of these young CEOs have top notch education credentials or have come from money so as to have a leg up on the competition but they do not necessarily sell a better cure for heamerrohoids (which is a real pain - I can attest).
Their pitch is to convince the beholders to part with their cash. Hence beholdee beware!
This autumn the weather gods cooperated as we took a family trip in the northeast to see six states that qualify or makeup what is known colloquially in America as New England. Mass, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island (tiniest state in the union). The outing helped tally up the states we either lived in, visited or have worked in to 47. Guess which three have eluded this intrepid traveling family. Any rate the drive was all in about 1,800 miles and included some memorable geographic wonders or points of interest. Easternmost part of state of Massachusetts being one. Furthest drivable road east in Mass being another. Visit to all Ivy League schools (term harkens to a collegiate athletics conference and generally regarded as elite academic institutes of some repute worldwide) is another random bucket list item of which this trip afforded the chance to knock two more of the list. Dartmouth in Hanover, NH and Brown (and its sister institute the RISD - school f
Why not become a CEO? You can then advertise to your heart's content with the VC's money..and then declare Chapter 11 or whatever it's called.
ReplyDeleteI will stick to chapters in a Ludlum or some such mindless book for sometime.. I have few more blocks to unblock.
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