23andMe Is Just ‘Me’ Now
Also EF Hutton, Avon CDS and pig butchering.
The basic rule is that the chief executive officer of a company works for the board of directors, and the directors work for the shareholders. Sometimes, though, the CEO is also the controlling shareholder, and this becomes circular: She works for the directors, who work for her. If they disagree, things get weird. If they’re unhappy with her, they can fire her, but then she can fire them.
This doesn’t come up all that often in basic job-performance situations: Presumably if you are a director at a company controlled by its founder, CEO and main shareholder, you’re there because you believe in her vision for the company, and you don’t spend a ton of time thinking about firing her and replacing her with someone else. It does happen, though: We talked last year about World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., whose board of directors pushed out founder-CEO Vince McMahon after sexual misconduct allegations, and then, as controlling shareholder, he pushed them out.
