CEOs Bashed in Poll

There's good and bad news for CEOs in Light Reading's Work Poll this month. The good news is that most people think their companies would survive if the CEOs were run over by a bus. The bad news is one in 12 would like to drive the bus.

So far, 91 people have taken the poll, and results indicate the following:

• CEOs get well paid for what they do. Thirty percent of respondents describe their CEO's pay as "adequate," while 20 percent describe it as "generous"; 27 percent describe it as "over the top," and 15 percent described it as "out of control."
  
  
• The jury is out on whether CEOs are worth the money they earn. On the plus side, 15 percent of respondents say their CEOs are "invaluable," and 28 percent say they're "positive on balance." At the other end of the scale, 13 percent say their CEO should be fired.
  
  
• The best CEOs are the ones that have done it before. "Veteran CEOs" are best for startups, according to 36 percent of the votes, and are best for public companies, according to 52 percent. Original company founders get quite a high rating (27 percent) as CEOs for startups but get a much lower rating (7 percent) as CEOs of public companies.
  
  

To take the poll yourself and see the latest results in detail, please click on this link.

— Peter Heywood, Founding Editor, Light Reading