I'm wondering if anyone watched/read all the testimony and if there was anything interesting or groundbreaking that we didn't already know? Or was it all just grandstanding from the politicians?
I didn't read all of it, but I didn't see anything major in the parts I did read.
Most of these congressional investigations are pedantic fluff, questions to garner political points with constituents, and well rehearsed answers/talking points. With the level of coaching CEOs at that level receive, both in general communications and relationship management as well as specific coaching for the investigation, there's almost no chance of anything truly earth-shattering coming out.
Maybe I'm just a sad, jaded individual contributor...
Nowadays you're probably right. I remember when the big tobacco execs came up, that's when we learned that they had previously known about the ill effects of smoking.
I guess these days CEOs are better prepared to dodge those kinds of questions.
Didn't they all lie and say they didn't think tobacco was addictive? I thought it wasn't their testimony that revealed anything, but they used the hearings to show the scientific studies and testimony of underlings to prove it was a lie.
You might be thinking of The Insider (1999), though that film was mostly faithful to the real life story behind the 60 Minutes investigation.[0]
What you were probably thinking of can be found at 2:00 in the video below. Seven tobacco industry CEOs testifying at once, affectionately referred to as the "seven dwarfs".
The Insider is in my opinion excellent, and highly recommended.
One thing that stood out to me was each CEO declaring their unwaivering support for the police and US military when pressed by Republican members. It was presented as a false dichotomy of course, but none took a stand of hesitation towards that support.
This goes contradictory to what they've communicated to their employees as of late.
I understand they can be speaking in false promises but it was interesting to see them all tow the line when asked.
My question now is, how do the employees of these companies feel about the public position their CEOs took yesterday on that?
In a nutshell they answered “I don’t agree with that characterization” or “I don’t remember, can I follow up with your office?” to a lot of the questions. Followed by waffling on about their mission statement until being interrupted with the next question. To me it came off as a group of CEOs giving long winded non-answers. Not much substance.
Most of these congressional investigations are pedantic fluff, questions to garner political points with constituents, and well rehearsed answers/talking points. With the level of coaching CEOs at that level receive, both in general communications and relationship management as well as specific coaching for the investigation, there's almost no chance of anything truly earth-shattering coming out.
Maybe I'm just a sad, jaded individual contributor...