Marc Andreessen deserves high praise for the quality and the depth of his blog posts, which I now read faithfully and suggest you do as well.  I just started getting it, however, so I have had to catch up.  Here follows a response to an essay posted last month, which I submit with gratitude to Mr Andreessen and the author for having raised the issue.

Publishing an analysis of why some CEOs cheat, in the form of keys for how not to cheat, is about as effective as MBA schools and undergraduate business programs instituting ethics courses.

If someone has gotten as far as the top spot, and his visceral instincts, mentors and practical experience haven’t taught him to recognize the value of regulatory compliance, transparency and fairness, he is never going to get it.

The world’s many effective leaders, including the ones with hearts of stone [I’m no Pollyanna], understand the problem.  They are just reluctant to admit it.  Secret handshake, fraternal code, etc.

There are some people who have climbed, clawed or careened to the top on the sheer whiff of what they anticipate to be the power that awaits them there.  Power is what they’re after.  No concoction of laws, punishments, humiliation, barriers, external auditors and well-meaning blog posts is going to stop them.  They perceive the effort as nothing more than a calculated risk.  In fact, the more they escape detection, the more risk they’re willing to assume.

There is an aspect of greed, but it is nowhere near as motivating as the power drive.  The money and the trophies are only what these characters use to demonstrate the fact that they have made it.  Mere peacock plumage. 

So once these people get to the pinnacle, there ain’t nobody who’s going to tell them how to run their companies.  And that’s what they think auditors, whistleblowers, the press and regulators are doing — getting in the way of a hard-won power trip.  For this type of CEO, it is not about right and wrong or even what’s best for the company and customers.  It is about not letting anyone challenge their right of way.

These are the ones who populate their boards with cronies — insist on being both CEO and chairman of the board — treat the company as a piggy bank even in their retirement.  That kind of stuff.

Yes, Author.  Staff and management bear some responsibility.  But by shifting the emphasis to management technique and advising future leaders to get savvy on the laws [and therefore the loopholes], you are missing the point of the question as you pose it.

For our friends in the People’s Republic of Berkeley, where I visit early and often as well, who want to understand why evil gamesmanship exists in Corporate America, I suggest looking everywhere there is a hierarchy and authority figures.  I guarantee you’ll see the same behavior in a good number of organizations, for profit and not.  Families, even.

The "evil" problem is not the exclusive output of business interests or the consequence of wanting to make piles of money.  It’s the dark side of human nature.  At one point or another, every human being is going to have to wrestle with the power grabbing aspect of our wiring.  You deal with it from somewhere inside yourself.  CEOs need to know that they won’t find the rules for this battle in the SEC’s playbook.

As Charles Barkley says, I may be wrong, but I doubt it.

So after I finished reading the post, I wondered:  if I disagree with the author’s approach to the question posed him, what is the real answer. 

I didn’t even have to get up from my desk.  The answer arrived in an email about a subject completely unrelated to this one.  Or so I thought.

                                The purpose of authority is to serve. 

This, Author, is the answer to the question you pose.

By the way.  That remark in the author’s original post about Joseph Nacchio’s name being akin to that of
a crime boss is more than a little inappropriate.  Just because THE SOPRANOS
was a hit doesn’t mean we get to go back to the days when we’re free to assume that it’s OK to make sly references to Italian Americans being mobbed-up.  Just good etiquette — not a question of political correctness or ethnic sensitivity.

Someone is on the ball at HQ.  Not only is THE WALL STREET JOURNAL’s David Kesmodel reporting that John Mackey has made a formal apology, Whole Foods has announced an internal investigation into RahodebGate.  I hope it goes farther than ethics training for the executive team.

Last night, a local radio talk show was addressing the question of whether to include anti-racism courses in elementary school curricula.  This is the same issue as to whether ethics courses should be included in MBA programs.  Many experts believe that these are necessary steps.

It would be great if we could still grow up learning, from every corner of our culture and most especially in the home, that some things are right and some are wrong.  What we have instead is  some sort of unconscious acculturation around lower standards, as long as money’s being made or foes are defeated. 

Something is making it OK for us to call each other names.  And something is making it OK for executives to cross the line.  It’s not a conspiracy, which means it might actually be organic — which makes it scarier.  Something is making coarseness not only OK but acceptable.

I’ve heard Ivy League MBAs argue that the CEO’s only job is to increase shareholder value — and if he or she does that, the CEO should be practically untouchable.  While these universities probably are not going out of their way to promote ruthlessness, a kind of combustion seems to occur in their halls that cultivates this side of human nature.  Maybe it’s the fact that the graduates go on to join the Power Elite — learning to play by the established rules in order to get some of that power, then endowing their academic institutions with the resulting lucre.

This is why incest is illegal in most states.  The bloodlines are getting pretty thin in business these days.  For many, it is all about preserving their hegemony at any cost.  Fewer and fewer members of the inner circle are willing to ask questions.  Since humans like their tribes,  the Power Elite is no different — even when, like Mr Mackey, they protest too much that they live outside the system.

As long as this kind of thinking dominates how we define value, episodes like Mackey’s will continue to emerge from the shadows of American business competition.  At this point, I’ve come to believe that the only way to stop it is to punish it.  And to work for the day that more companies find ways to grow, compete and profit without resorting to or enabling ruthless, narcissistic, elitist behavior.

I’m glad Mr Mackey apologized.  And I hope that the internal investigation helps to identify the root causes of his behavior and whether they’ve been fertilized by the rest of the company and its board. 

I also hope that every executive team in the country pays attention.  We don’t need another episode to demonstrate the importance of speaking truth to power and encouraging the diversity of thinking, as well as of executive bloodlines, that fosters fairness in the way American business is done.  I know from personal experience that this type of healthy, collaborative challenge helps us to adjust our thinking and correct our mistakes before anyone else has to suffer.

This post is helpful not just for startups but for a great many companies questioning their marketing spend.  The link includes comments, including one from yours truly.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL just reported that the SEC is launching an informal investigation into this week’s most duplicitous CEO.  It’s a good sign, even though the legal codes associated with this type of offense are tough to enforce.

At least we get the satisfaction of knowing that someone is paying attention.