If someone offered you a CEO job for millions, would you take it?

[woken]

Setting aside the fact that nobody here is qualified for the job and the opportunity won’t happen anyway, I agree with @biophase .

Everybody has a price. 1 year of running a company, getting 15M in the process + experience + connections and you say No?

What are you, a brick?

 

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[GPM]

Yes I would take it. Sure it would be demanding and a serious all-consuming time role, but think of the connections you would make.

I love oil and gas. If I could head an oil and gas firm, and rub shoulders with all the other oil and gas executives, you don't think I could take those relationships and experiences with me to my own venture once my tenure is done??

@Kak imagine what could be done coming into talks with chemical guys with experience being the freaking CEO of a big oil and gas firm, vs. just some small potatoes guy with a few mid level contacts?

Would I sacrifice a few years to do that? Absolutely. It would be a STEP on the journey, not the final destination. I also love being with my family too much every day, there is no way in hell I would give that up for any serious length of time. Plus as CEO I would be taking my kids to the meetings with me to learn. Got a problem with that? Shut your trap and get outta here.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

Okay, the real conclusion I think is that most people have a number and it depends heavily on how rich (or not) they are right now.

 

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[biophase]

It's not rocket science that a job that pays you millions is a pretty nice launchpad to your entrepreneurial journey.

I think most people are ignoring the fact that you don’t need a fastlane opportunity if you take a job that pays you equal to if not more than what you’d ever make at your future fastlane opportunity.

MJ said that a salary can be the “massive scale” in your CENTS.

 

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[fastlane_dad]

This just struck me ---

Another way to think about this question is three prong

1 - As an idea of servitude (will you sit in Jail for 10 Million dollars for a year)
2 - As an idea of a Windfall / Lottery / Jackpot (Do you want 10 million for doing nothing )
3 - As some blend of work / reward that you did not fully earn (Do you want to do a 'Job' that typically takes a LOT of process to get to, but you shortcut that process and receive $10MIL a year for doing that job)

Generally, on most occasions - I am against ALL three scenarios. Sure my age / position in life can dictate some of these ponderings - but generally I am not all for a handout, especially when you are a YOUNG person without much experience, confidence or wisdom under your belt.

The truth is that the question and the answer is a combination of all three of these questions.

I'm not for doing something I don't want to do (especially now more so then ever). If I'd want the position of CEO for XX MIL/year I'd actively be working towards that.

I'm not looking for a windfall (financial) for doing nothing.

AND definitely not looking for getting a title or position that I did not dig through the trenches for doing and reaching myself (robbing me of the 'process').

MUCH of the reward that came to me building up a fastlane business is the confidence, skills, connections, emotional resilience and mindset that has been acquired - with the financial benefit a giant plus.

SURE a financial windfall CAN benefit many / all scenarios - but there is so much on the back end to account for that's unspoken here that would require and entail a lot of discussion before any sort of answer is given.

 

[jdm667]

No, I would not take it (I do not have millions). A $50K to $100K salary keeps so many people trapped. Imagine how trapped you would feel making millions per year at a CEO job?

"I really want to pursue this other business that society needs, but I get paid millions to do this CEO job that takes up all my time and kills my soul, so - I guess I'll just keep doing it."

 

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[Guest-5ty5s4]

Some people here are qualified for the job.

I agree, that's why I asked. I know a little bit about a few of you who'd fit the bill.

 

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[NickVGreen]

I would think they were mad and that reality had taken a strong "Brewster's Millions" turn...and then accept the offer.

Having grown up as a diplomat brat, I'm relatively fine with drastically changing my life circumstances (location, friends, etc.). My life is fairly comfortable now. For millions, or "just" one million a year, I'd be more than fine with doing it for a while. I'm sure I would spend some of the money to compensate for the stress, but I would be able to set aside enough to live off of within a couple of years.

It would also be a learning experience, figuring out whether I could handle that kind of work and life and making connections that I could make advantage of either for myself or any children down the line.

I would also enjoy the absurdity of it. It would make no sense to me, making it maybe the most interesting event in my life so far.

 

[Lex DeVille]

I'd take the job and rebrand like Radioshack...

 

[FIFL]

In my career I have worked alongside CEO's of decent sized private companies (mid 8 figure up to 9 figure businesses), as well as with a local/regional CEO of a very large public software company (the parent is fortune 500) (regional business is >$1bn). Most are employees with stock etc, others are founders. They're all incredibly stressed out and have no balance in their lives.

The employee CEOs are more stressed from a lack of control and their neck being on the chopping block with the next bad quarter or financial year.

The founders are more stressed from having everything on the line, managing a board and keeping investors happy (slowly losing control of ownership). Worth pointing out these are businesses that have VC money involved so it's different to what we normally try to build here.

These guys all barely see their families, have often had divorces, and their physical health goes to shit. The look grey, overweight and seem miserable.

Have any of those here answering YES actually seen up close what this life would be like?

Also, probably worth pointing out that without experience and track record you'd last about a month and then your reputation would be destroyed forever once people worked out you don't know what you're doing.

I've also worked with CEOs of smaller businesses, and they seem a LOT happier.

 

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[biophase]

To be fair on this discussion, it’s not just accepting a job for pay that you’re happy with. It’s also exiting all of what you currently have going on. You can’t realistically be the CEO or upper exec of a major company and also run your own stuff anymore.

So you have to sell, or turn it over, or quit.

If I had nothing else going on, sure I’d take it. The problem is many of us believe in what we are currently doing to a greater extent than a really good, but linear job opportunity.

To @biophase point, yes, I’d figure it out for the real deal $20m a year with stock options, CEO of a giant company, position.

The hypothetical awesome job paying $1-3m where you still have a boss and have to live the corporate life? Meh, that’s not exciting enough to totally uproot my life and all my projects.

The actual company would matter also. For example, what if it was Monsanto? What if it was Exxon? Home Depot? Amazon? My answers would be different depending on the company.

If you take a purely logical approach, even if your business is making $1m a year, you are probably taking a $5m a year offer at a company that your values align with.

Say my $1m/yr ecom company is worth about $5m. So I can sell it, cash $5m and make another $5m in 365 days? 3 years from now I’ve made $20m.

I just went from first class money to private jet money for the rest of my life.

If you are 40, and at 43 you are +$20m, that’s lifetime retirement money. Maybe if you was 60, you don’t want to give up 3 years of your life.

 

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[BizyDad]

This is tough. Good thought experiment and good thread. Thanks @thechosen1 for posing the question. Several comments have swayed me one way or another.

For me, it comes down to a couple of things.

How high profile is the gig? The more high profile, the more demands on me. Which, as Andy said, takes me away from my kids.

Now maybe I'd be willing to sacrifice a year to set them up nicely. But since I am currently undecided if I'm even going to leave a lot of money to my kids, (I mean they're young, and I don't know how responsible they will be. God forbid one of my kids ended up being a drug addict, I don't want to leave them a dime) so I don't know that "generational money" is what I'm after anyways. Maybe 15 mil isn't generational money, but what I could do with 15 mil at my age would be. I have to admit it would be a spring board.

Putting aside the issue of wealth and my children and how this impacts them, the other big drawback is that I don't feel that I am qualified to run most of the Fortune 500 companies. Therefore, I'm setting myself up to fail. I don't want to fail at this.

I'm not afraid of failure. But I'm also not trying out for an NBA team. It's that I have no shot, and I don't want to deal with the day to day of living with imposter syndrome. Faking my way to an extra $15M doesn't sound good to me. I would feel like a con artist, and I don't want to feel like a con artist. The stress of my day to day lying and fakery might kill me. I don't know the first thing about L'Oreal. My first interview on CNBC with tank the stock price. Fml.

This would likely be the highest profile thing I would do in my life, and even if I had more impact, I don't seek out high profile stuff. So one year failure of XYZ company is what I would be known for. It's what would go on my Wikipedia page.

Of course, I probably won't have a Wikipedia page if I don't say yes.

I don't know how important any of those things are to me. Right now, I enjoy my life. I am at least 80% happy with 90% of the goings on in my life. Do I need more? No. Do I want more? Yes. Will being a fortune 500 CEO help me achieve my goals? Maybe.

I think my ultimate answer is, it depends on what company we're talking about. If I've got a shot at running it well, I'd probably take it. But there are maybe 10 out of the 500 that I would have that shot. Maybe. If I think I'm a one year and done kind of CEO, I'll stick with the life I've got. It's a good life.

On a side note, did you know Woolworths is #159? I thought they died before I was 10.

 

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[NeoDialectic]

In general, I would be hard pressed to say yes to most things I don't want to do atleast on some level. I don't need more money and wouldn't do it just for the money.

However.

There seems to be 3 factors that make this into a solid Maybe for me

1. Being CEO of a fortune 500 is hard work in alot of ways that I respect. I imagine it could be a huge instigator of personal growth.
2. Being CEO of a fortune 500 has many more benefits than just pay and personal growth (social, respect, networking, etc)
3. 15 Million is A LOT of money and can elevate the lifestyle even more of most rich people or add to your family dynasty.

I dont super care for any of these things on their own, but I am casually interested a little in all 3. Combine that and you may have peaked my interest.

 

[MTF]

If someone offered you a job as CEO of a fortune 500 company making millions per year, would you take it?

I feel like if you aren't already rich, answer should be a resounding "YES!" but for those who are already financially free, answer might be "meh."

No.

Lifestyle > money

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

If someone offered you a job as CEO of a fortune 500 company making millions per year, would you take it?

I feel like if you aren't already rich, answer should be a resounding "YES!" but for those who are already financially free, answer might be "meh."

Depends, but probably not. A CEO is usually just a highly paid job. What it would depend on is how much freedom I’d get to actually run the show as I want to, vs how much interference and order-taking there would be from others. In addition to that, I’d need to be passionate about or find their mission meaningful, otherwise I’d probably not be interested in it.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

A "highly paid job" with a tremendous amount of authority and the punishment for failure is

Punishment for failure is also being in the public eye, being publicly ridiculed, receiving death threats from strangers, having people put guillotines up outside your house, socialists protesting outside your house, threatening your wife and children...

Oh wait, this is the punishment for doing a good job too.

Idk, lots of trade-offs!

 

[David Fitz]

No.

The whole point of living this life is to create my own thing and answer to nobody apart from the tax man.

 

[fastlane_dad]

If I wanted the job, I would already be pursuing it. I'm not, which means I don't want it. Therefore, I would turn it down.

Also, anything that involving the following list of misfortunes is a hard no:

• Attending more than one business meeting per month
• Being part of a publicity campaign
• Proximity to cubicles or similar torture devices
• Listening to people who don't know what's going on try to explain what's going on

Can't say for sure, but I suspect that rules out most of the Fortune 500 CEO positions.

Well said !!

 

[Andy Black]

No.

 

[Kak]

The actual company would matter also. For example, what if it was Monsanto? What if it was Exxon? Home Depot? Amazon? My answers would be different depending on the company.

If you take a purely logical approach, even if your business is making $1m a year, you are probably taking a $5m a year offer at a company that your values align with.

Say my $1m/yr ecom company is worth about $5m. So I can sell it, cash $5m and make another $5m in 365 days? 3 years from now I’ve made $20m.

I just went from first class money to private jet money for the rest of my life.

If you are 40, and at 43 you are +$20m, that’s lifetime retirement money. Maybe if you was 60, you don’t want to give up 3 years of your life.

Yeah of course there are going to be some companies that don’t work with your values, but it also could be an opportunity to shine some light in the darkness. After all, you are the CEO in this hypothetical scenario. The company culture and the way the business runs is becoming your call.

It’s the companies that don’t have a working model without ruining their reputation that I would have to avoid.

 

[Aditya Gunjal]

If someone offered you a job as CEO of a fortune 500 company making millions per year, would you take it?

I feel like if you aren't already rich, answer should be a resounding "YES!" but for those who are already financially free, answer might be "meh."

Anything better than current situation should be favoured. I think rational thinking is required for such decisions rather than standing with ones values, situation dont occur according to our values and we have to face them no matter what our core values are. If we are making much money than most of average people, we must work more than what average people do.
"Doing what you hate before doing what you love". Your view is mostly right(wrote this after reading latter threads). Sorry but i haven't worked on anything remotely similar to job let alone a job. I do have rational thinking which tells money is necessary for day to day living (and some other expenses) and values cant be fed to mouth. I am willing to work for such job(not for lifetime,i too want freedom) but freedom has price and that price is money,
No matter the source of money.
Sir MJ taught us that job will feed the necessary money required to build a business even if we hate the job. Millions a year is far better than thousands.

 

[Kevin88660]

For most people it is the size of the figure.

 

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[Guest-5ty5s4]

because that's what you want to do.

Not at all... In fact, this was extracted from Random Chat, and wasn't even intended to be a thread... We are all here because we are or want to become Fastlane entrepreneurs...

It's not rocket science that a job that pays you millions is a pretty nice launchpad to your entrepreneurial journey.

 

[biophase]

They won't if they want to build a fastlane business instead of playing basketball but the post was about taking a job as a high paid CEO. You guys are trying anything so people will say yes to taking a high paying job because that's what you want to do.

Aren’t a high paid CEO and an NBA player both employees?

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

I think most people are ignoring the fact that you don’t need a fastlane opportunity if you take a job that pays you equal to if not more than what you’d ever make at your future fastlane opportunity.

MJ said that a salary can be the “massive scale” in your CENTS.

Very true, thank you. If you made millions as a Wall Street executive for just a few years and then invested most of it, you’re still looking at the same amount as someone with a fastlane exit.

Now are you going to get this job in your 20’s? Good luck. But if you get the offer? It would be crazy to say no if you’re young and broke

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

I'd take the job and rebrand like Radioshack...
View attachment 44481

Okay, tai.

 

[John TenBrink]

If someone offered you a job as CEO of a fortune 500 company making millions per year, would you take it?

I feel like if you aren't already rich, answer should be a resounding "YES!" but for those who are already financially free, answer might be "meh."

Not enough detail to provide a solid answer. But, I know from experience that high pay demands higher expectations...stress, hours, politics, less family time, no work-life balance, etc. The job was killing me inside and out.

If I had to go through that experience again, my answer would be a resounding "NO"!

 

[Hong_Kong]

This would likely be the highest profile thing I would do in my life, and even if I had more impact, I don't seek out high profile stuff. So one year failure of XYZ company is what I would be known for. It's what would go on my Wikipedia page.

Of course, I probably won't have a Wikipedia page if I don't say yes.

I would say no for this reason. I don't want to be known I would rather remain private and enjoy my time. There are people that own massive private companies that get very little publicity because there are little public details. Taking a high profile salary job, with tons of public disclosures sounds not good.

 

[Jadus]

Absolutely! I'd work it for a year and if I survive, resign and take the money and run!

 

[Andy Black]

The irony of someone saying “I would do it and so should you because you would make all this money guaranteed“ is that mindset is what will prevent you from getting the offer.

Even a young person, with no experience, if accidentally offered such a job must feel the responsibility of doing well. Imagine you are in your 20s and you get the job, a year later you are the laughing stock of the business community. Books are written about the dumbass who was so useless, politicians started to look useful in comparison.

That should bother you. Not all money earned is the same. Some of you will say “but you shouldn’t care what others think about you” and I agree, but I do care what I think about myself.

I don’t want a job where I know I’ll fail.

Compare this to being in the NBA by some fluke or weird ”lucky” connection. Now you are on the starting line. I guarantee you are not thinking “but I’ll have $10M extra after this year”. You’ll be thinking “get me out of this, I cannot stand the way I am failing here and all those commentators are making fun of me and they are right”.

Just another way to look at it. It’s not just the money.

My thoughts exactly.

It's not just that I'm not prepared to increase my hours and stress. I've never been a CEO of a large company and have no desire to be. I doubt I'll do a great job improving the lives of customers, employees, and share holders. I'd be a complete imposter.

 

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