The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[OakesCS]

I've been part of the process twice and both times I've seen detritus survive and good people be swept away. In both cases personal rapport between the sedimentary types and their controlling powers, who tend to have superficial knowledge of capability and performance, was the factor in survival. CHK was pervaded by people with very modest capability (and that is being very euphemistic) from the senior VP level on down. As an example, I was at a company party for interns at which a senior VP put his arm around an attractive female intern and said "so honey, are you the entertainment for tonight?". Somehow that guy kept his job for almost 2 more yrs yet 4 layers of people (including at least 3 witnesses) under him were whacked in 2013. They did have the occasional very smart person but none of the smart people I knew had much control.