this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity, the company whose 3D game engine had recently seen backlash from developers over proposed fee structures, will retire as CEO, president, and board chairman at the company, according to a press release issued late on a Monday afternoon, one many observe as a holiday.

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[–] [email protected] 219 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Pisses me off that CEOs never get fired for their bullshit and get to "retire" or "resign" like they didn't just make the most boneheaded decision that severely hurt the company.

There really needs to be some organizational structure where the CEOs have the power to make the decisions they make, but the employees have the power to punish and fire them when they do shit like this. No golden parachutes for them!

[–] lung 125 points 1 year ago (6 children)

This is actually wrong. There's a near 100% chance that the decision was made by the board, and also the decision to remove the CEO. So we're talking about the fall guy, but being an insider, the fall guy will get a tidy sum for the dive

Then the CEO can be recycled to some other project, and a new CEO instated at Unity, so they can pivot or double down with no moral dilemma. In reality, the board was there all along and it's all a big PR game

[–] solomon42069 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Also if we're talking about avoiding responsibility cause of privilege then the boards of companies are the topic.

The C suite are just managers, usually wealthy from their own career rather than heritage. Board people are almost all old wealth, a parasitic race of nepo babies who ruin everything.

[–] lung 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah man, the hubris it takes to meet only a few times a year, but imagine that you have the elite wisdom needed make all the decisions. You're the guy on the board, so by definition you must be smarter than the worker bees, huh?

[–] partial_accumen 13 points 1 year ago

CEO may have even wanted to leave anyway before the announcement and agreed to make this unpopular announcement knowing that he'd take the bad blood with him when he left.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Maybe, but I'm betting that the CEO who floated the idea that FPS players would be willing to pay per-reload didn't push back too hard against the board's ideas.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Unity is a public company. Look at their share price:

https://yhoo.it/3ZNqeJJ

The company IPO'd 3 years ago at $52 a share, it tanked in late 2021, and since then has been way below the IPO price. Non-investors only started paying attention in September when they came up with their ludicrous licensing fees. But, for investors what mattered was the way their investment cratered in late 2021 / early 2022.

The investors want returns. This isn't going to be a matter of finding a good CEO who can treat gamers and the gaming industry right. That kind of CEO isn't going to get the investors back to $175 a share. The board is going to demand someone who finds a new way to tap new revenue streams, even if it makes people miserable. This one particular gambit failed, but the board isn't just going to sit back and accept that the IPO price is too high. The chairman of the board is a partner at Sequoia Capital, one of the main pre-IPO investors. My guess is that the VC / Private Equity people didn't manage to cash out completely before the stock price crashed. So, they're going to figure out a way to juice the share price so they can sell, even if it means killing the company in the long term.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

They obviously recruited him for the role for his great work ruining EA

[–] trolololol 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Except that guy was CEO and board

[–] Benchamoneh 3 points 1 year ago

Most CEOs are shareholders, this is nothing new or unusual

[–] [email protected] 76 points 1 year ago

You're saying the workers should own the means of production. Sounds fair to me.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Pisses me off that CEOs never get fired for their bullshit and get to "retire" or "resign" like they didn't just make the most boneheaded decision that severely hurt the company.

They're rich people and it's not considered acceptable to hold rich people accountable in even the most trivial way.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Well, it's only unacceptable to rich people who have the power to avoid consequences.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

The Rich only suffer under the boots of the evolved form ultra rich

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (4 children)

CEOs are beholden to the shareholders, not the employees

[–] MajorHavoc 58 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Employees should be automatic shareholders. Ought to be a workers right by default to receive some portion of the equity they're producing.

Edit: And to be clear, shareholders win too. More companies should voluntarily structure themselves to grant shareholder rights to employees. Dumbass company ending mistakes are usually seen a long way off by line and rank employees.

But it should also be legally mandated structure, much like 401k rules exist now. I propose that all players involved are better off with such a rule, other than the (not currently rare) asshole CEOs who only want to pump and dump their stock.

[–] shrodes 25 points 1 year ago

Whoa get those perverted thoughts out of here commie scum!

[–] cyd 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's actually pretty common to provide employees with stock options. But depending on the situation, it can be a better deal for the company than the employees. For the company, equity is a relatively cheap way to "motivate" employees. For the employees, it goes against the principle of portfolio diversification: if the company does badly, not only is their regular income threatened, but so are their assets.

[–] SwallowsDick 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, most employees would much rather be paid the cash equivalent of whatever their stock option may have been

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I’ve gotten options at the last three companies I’ve worked for and they’ve never been worth more than $5,000.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Unity employees are shareholders, but greatly in the minority compared to the executives. The C-suite is routinely granted thousands of shares while the lowly employees are given a few hundred RSUs every year, which vest over a period of 4 years. It's kinda bullshit how little equity employees by comparison, but definitely by design.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago

They receive money which can be used to buy equity, no? It’s their choice not to. At least in a publicly traded company.

That point aside, I usually do receive stock in the company at jobs I’ve worked. Financial firms.

[–] Sordid 7 points 1 year ago

I don't see why the shareholders wouldn't want his head on a pike as well.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, I understand that's the current structure. I'm saying there needs to be a new structure where CEOs can't make greedy decisions with impunity. Clearly the idea that the board is supposed to prevent that doesn't work because this story is all too common.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

In a co-operative the shareholders are employees and associated members, and they elect the board.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumers%27_co-operative

Not that Unity is a co-operative, but there is another way.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

That's not just CEOs. All employees after a certain point up the ladder have to "put in their resignation" if they are to be fired. It's a convention that saves face for both parties.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The only way this can be done in a capitalist way, is by distributing exactly one company share for every employee that's not tradeable at all, flattening the hierarchy completely, and making every decision in a direct democratic way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

wouldn't an untradeable share just be worthless? give employees stock options

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It represents your partial ownership of the company and property

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Or being a cooperative business.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Profit maximization and personal gain over the many is where cooperation goes to die.

Some small companies can do a good job, and sometimes bigger ones too, but they'll be crushed by other companies that exploit their employees forcing them to do the same if they want to stay in the business.

[–] dylanTheDeveloper 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Being fired as CEO essentially black lists you from working. So they get nudged out instead

[–] Silvus 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah good, being fired from anything above an entry level job gets you blacklisted from similar level positions. It's the world telling you, you belong at a lower level position.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I mean, some people need to get blacklisted.