14 of the Worst CEOs and Executives Known to Business
From ex-Enron CEO Ken Lay to Bed Bath & Beyond’s former overlord, here are 20 of the worst CEOs and company executives of all time, as told by business-savvy Redditors.
Published 11 months ago
After a year defined by flying door plugs, falling equipment, and so many missing bolts that nearly half of Gen Z is now afraid of air travel, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun announced that he — unlike a whole lot of his poorly-manufactured aircratfts — would be departing the company by the end of the year.
“The eyes of the world are on us,” the embroiled exec wrote in a letter shared with Boeing employees on Monday. “We are going to fix what isn’t working, and we are going to get our company back on the track towards recovery and stability.”
But Calhoun is far from alone in leaving a less-than-stellar mark on a company he was hired to lead. From ex-Enron CEO Ken Lay to Bed Bath & Beyond’s former overlord, here are 20 of the worst CEOs and company executives of all time, as told by business-savvy Redditors.
1
Jeff Bezos — Amazon
“Have people forgotten that Jeff Bezoz runs warehouses with so bad work conditions that youd be better off homeless? Basically exploiting the lack of workers rights in the US. The warehouses he tried to run in other first world countries couldnt even function because he was forced to actually pay workers and give them better hours/conditions.” —bumpmoon
2
Hector Ruiz – Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
“Hector Ruiz was the CEO from 2002 to 2008, which is the time frame where AMD was ‘mysteriously’ losing hardware contracts while having superior/competitive chips, followed by the Core 2 launch. Whatever else you think of his decision making, it can't be easy to lay down a plan for your company when the market isn't behaving in any predictable way.” —OftenSarcastic
6
Mark J. Tritton — Bed Bath & Beyond
“Mark Tritton, of BBBY. You have to be a certain level of bad to have your CFO climb up to the top of a building and jump to his own death abandoning his wife and three daughters because the books were that horrible. Then to have the audacity to sue the company after bankruptcy for not honoring the golden parachute after the way you left the company.” —12whistle
8
Stockton Rush — OceanGate
“It’s gotta be Stockton Rush. Not only did he make terrible decision after terrible decision when it came to designing their “innovative” submersibles, but then he was dumb enough to take a one way trip to the bottom of the ocean in his accumulation of bad decisions.” —Pfolty
9
Chris C. — Hasbro
“Chris C., CEO of Hasbro Comes in to a money printing organization. Describes in his opening speeches about how no one at his cocktail parties knew was magic the gathering was, nor did he. Printing a collectable card game is a simple business model; wait for card values to go up, reprint them, and sell boxes due to value of staple cards inside. He immediately prints everything into the ground. Then, he goes back and even reprints cards the company had promised for 25+ years to never reprint. Alienating all of the companies whale spenders. Whale mtg collectors and finance nerds share space in a Venn diagram. They begin writing articles in finance news that hasbron is killing its golden goose. The stock has plummeted.” — JohnLaw1717
10
Dave Calhoun — Boeing and GE
Long before he — pun avoidable — crashed and burned Boeing, Calhoun garnered a less-than-stellar reputation for his work as higher-up at GE, where he worked for 26 years on various transportation initiatives. As Redditor u/Good-Gold-6515 so aptly put it, “wow this dude got a lot of practice helping run a brand into the ground way before Boeing!”
11
Bob Nardelli — Home Depot
“Bob Nardelli. Was CEO of The Home Depot in the early 2000’s. Reversed the core company beliefs, and decided that he wanted to compete with Walmart. Made the stock tank. Lost my 401k entirely. Then resigned with a huge amount of money and I had to change jobs. Almost 20 years ago, and HD is still recovering.” —Npatrick93
12
Ken Lay — Enron
“Ken Lay has to be mentioned. As the CEO of Enron, he could have simply sat in a chair and made millions of dollars. Instead, he decided to defraud investors so he could have a few more million dollars. He got caught and caused the biggest fraud-related bankruptcy in history. You might be looking for incompetence rather than malice, and if so, ignore me. But I don’t want people to forget about Ken Lay. He was a bad man.” —apollo_reactor_001
13
Richard S. Fuld Jr. — Lehman Brothers
"’It's one thing to oversee the collapse of one of Wall Street's most esteemed firms, Lehman Brothers, but when you're hubris triggers a national financial panic as well, you're a shoo-in for top prize. Fuld's reckless risk taking may have been typical for Wall Street, but his refusal to acknowledge that his firm was in trouble, and take steps to save it, was beyond the pale. Since filing the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history ($613 billion in debts outstanding), Fuld has been belligerent and unrepentant.’" —nomoremammoths
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