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Today's Business Leaders' Hiring Attitudes | Wharton Prof. Peter Cappelli —the Ripple Effect Podcast

July 25, 2023 / 00:35

This episode discusses the changing landscape of corporate leadership, focusing on the rise of engineers in executive roles and their optimization strategies. Key topics include the influence of data science on decision-making and the impact on employment.

The conversation highlights how modern leaders differ from previous generations, emphasizing their engineering backgrounds and data-driven approaches. The guests discuss the implications of these changes for workforce dynamics.

Specific examples illustrate how optimization often leads to minimizing employee numbers and reducing costs, raising questions about the future of work.

TL;DR

Corporate leaders are now mostly engineers focused on data-driven optimization, often minimizing employment costs.

Episode

0:35
00:00:00
the people who get to run companies now
00:00:02
are different in systematic ways than
00:00:04
they were a generation or two ago
00:00:07
they're much more likely to be Engineers
00:00:09
who come to these tasks with assumptions
00:00:13
about human behavior but also goals
00:00:15
about optimization the data science
00:00:17
world has given them lots of tools to
00:00:20
optimize but optimize you got to
00:00:22
optimize on something and generally they
00:00:24
optimize on minimizing the number of
00:00:27
employees and employment costs
00:00:30
foreign
00:00:31
[Music]

Episode Highlights

  • The New Leaders
    Today's company leaders are increasingly engineers with a unique perspective on human behavior.
    “They're much more likely to be Engineers.”
    @ 00m 07s
    July 25, 2023
  • Cost Optimization Focus
    Modern leaders often prioritize minimizing employee numbers and costs in their optimization efforts.
    “Optimize on something, and generally they optimize on minimizing costs.”
    @ 00m 20s
    July 25, 2023

Episode Quotes

  • They're much more likely to be Engineers.
    Today's Business Leaders' Hiring Attitudes | Wharton Prof. Peter Cappelli —the Ripple Effect Podcast
  • Optimize on something, and generally they optimize on minimizing costs.
    Today's Business Leaders' Hiring Attitudes | Wharton Prof. Peter Cappelli —the Ripple Effect Podcast

Key Moments

  • Engineer Influence00:07
  • Cost-Cutting Strategies00:20

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