December 28, 2025
Alexa, run the company
CEOs are hugely expensive. Why not automate them?
Fire the boss? Internet says replace million‑dollar CEOs with bots
TLDR: The article asks if sky‑high CEO pay should be replaced by automation, sparking a brawl over robot bosses. Commenters argue vendors would pocket the savings, AIs might be more ruthless, and human connections still matter—making this a fight about money, power, and who really runs companies.
Executives are cashing eye‑watering checks while shareholders fume, and the crowd has one spicy solution: automate the CEO. With Channel 4’s boss tipped for a £1.4m payday and FTSE chiefs pulling in tens of millions, readers asked the blunt question—if a single boss costs like a small town, why not let a robot run the show? One commenter even dropped receipts, linking to a CEO’s tone‑deaf tweet via archive, and the thread exploded.
The hottest take? That the AI wouldn’t be a savior at all—it’d just shift the gravy. As xyzzy123 warns, the companies selling the automation might “extract the surplus” that currently fattens executive pay. Meanwhile, llmslave2 pitched a boardroom bot that crunches data and gets legal sign‑offs… then roasted human execs with the zinger that an AI “doesn’t need to be very accurate” to outperform them. Ouch.
But the anti‑bot brigade clapped back: being CEO is about connections, charm, and those off‑the‑record calls, says pxtail. You can’t automate a handshake with the Chancellor—yet. And for comic relief, posters joked we should be automating “soft skills” first, because that’s what we’re apparently paying for. The vibe? High drama, sharp elbows, and a very real question: would a robot boss be cheaper, better… or just a new overlord?
Key Points
- •Multiple major UK companies faced potential shareholder revolts over executive pay during AGM season.
- •Pandemic-era revenues were devastated while government stimulus sustained firms; executives neither caused nor earned credit for this support.
- •Foxtons shareholders nearly 40% opposed a ~£1m bonus for CEO Nicholas Budden; the company received about £7m in government aid.
- •Executive pay is subject to shareholder votes at least every three years under the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act.
- •Data cited shows extreme pay disparities (e.g., Ocado CEO Tim Steiner’s £58.7m in 2019), prompting calls to reduce top-heavy wage bills and a longer-term question about automating the CEO role.