I'm usually not one to say companies shouldn't take on risks to expand into new business areas, particularly not in times where the core product is bleeding lucrative users... but here it's the same shit as with Twitter prior to Parag Agrawal's term or with Elon Musk's dozens of ventures.
It's one thing and bad enough if board members have sometimes dozens of posts... but Zuckerberg, Musk, Dorsey all show it's not a good idea when an actually active C-level exec has too many things on their table. And it's especially not good if they use company resources for their personal pet projects.
And it's especially not good if they use company resources for their personal pet projects.
Good grief.
I guess if you are a CFO, or finance guy, sure.
But a "pet project" is conjoined with passion. And R&D, and testing the waters in other markets, is what causes true motivation.
People often complain that big corps can only innovate via acquisition. Yet, this comment is complaining that big corps are innovating by... startup methods!
For what does a startup do, other than live as the pet project of its founders?
We should encourage CEOs of large corps to go out on a limb, to R&D, to bring change to the market, to explore new growth streams.
> And R&D, and testing the waters in other markets, is what causes true motivation.
There's a difference between legitimate R&D and pulling Tesla engineers to put out fires at Twitter. The latter is a blatant abuse of Tesla's resources and to be honest it's a miracle how Musk has not gotten under serious fire from at the very least the Tesla board or a lawsuit by shareholders.
It's one thing and bad enough if board members have sometimes dozens of posts... but Zuckerberg, Musk, Dorsey all show it's not a good idea when an actually active C-level exec has too many things on their table. And it's especially not good if they use company resources for their personal pet projects.