> or they're not actually running the company at all
Executives are not micro-managing day-to-day implementation decisions of every team, no. They set broad strategic goals, the management layers below them decide how to best operationalize those goals, and the layers below those middle managers make specific implementation decisions to execute those operations.
If you want to think of this as "not actually running the company at all", you're free to. The point is that's how the world works.
Microsoft has north of 100k SWEs working for them, the idea that corporate management could be personally responsible for the decisions of every single one is absurd.
It’s not “CEO must know everything a junior does”, but more of “If a junior messes up doing something for the company, the CEO is finally answerable” - be it to the board, the govt or the public etc.
Rephrasing it - there’s a reason it’s Zuckerberg and Pichai and Tim Cook who go to congress, and not the folks implementing it on the ground level.
This post isn't popular, it has already fallen off the HN frontpage never to be seen again in any context. It did not and will never break into any sort of traditional media.
Not a single Microsoft C-suite exec, or anyone within spitting distance of the C-suite, will ever hear about this. Do not mistake your personal media bubble for the general media ecosystem.
Executives are not micro-managing day-to-day implementation decisions of every team, no. They set broad strategic goals, the management layers below them decide how to best operationalize those goals, and the layers below those middle managers make specific implementation decisions to execute those operations.
If you want to think of this as "not actually running the company at all", you're free to. The point is that's how the world works.