
The Most Elite, Stagnant Club for Old People: Corporate Boards - adenadel
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-05/the-most-elite-stagnant-club-for-old-people-corporate-boards
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lotsoflumens
This so true.

At BBRY for example, directors make 300k to 400k per year. That's for having a
few nice lunches, shaking a few hands, and meeting with the management a
couple of times per year - at the same time that the company flounders without
any direction, fires hundreds of people and the stock takes a long multi-year
dive into the dumpster.

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pc86
One of the more light on content articles I've seen from Bloomberg. One chart
and seven paragraphs that say the same 2 things over and over.

> _[Calpers] issued a set of principles last fall stating that directors '
> independence can be compromised after 10 years_

Based on what evidence?

> _Thirty-four percent of boards do set a mandatory retirement age of 75 or
> older for directors, according to Spencer Stuart. Mandatory may be a
> misnomer:. "One of the phenomenon we found with mandatory retirement ages is
> that boards have a tendency to waive them or raise them when necessary,"
> said Bowie._

This is the same problem you have with legislatures - they are self-governing
so even when they impose rules or regulations meant to curtail their own
power, they can just suspend/waive/revoke/adjust as desired. No solution is
proposed but I'm not sure there is one (at least an easy one).

I'm not even going to touch the throw-away line about diversity.

~~~
tanker
I've started checking the comments on HN before clicking on Bloomberg articles
due to the low content value.

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chollida1
I think it's almost time to revamp boards but for different reasons.

Now a days boards rarely function well.

They are usually a first step for "corporate raiders" or "shareholder
activists" depending on what sude you are on, to leverage a company To force
it down whatever path they want.

I don't see long board terms as a problem for someone like summer assuming he
still has his mental faculties.

He helped build Viacom and cbs. He presumably knows more about those companies
than any other person on the earth.

Why would you force him off the board?

Just ensure that the board only has one master to serve. They can't
simultaneously serve employees, shareholders and the ceo.

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makmanalp
Previously: [https://hbr.org/2015/01/where-boards-fall-
short](https://hbr.org/2015/01/where-boards-fall-short)

