The Risks Were Poorly Understood

From a February, 2008 blogpost:

A person with less than ten years of experience would never become the CEO of a major public company. There are too many things that will be new to him, and way too much learning that will have to occur on the job [snip] If your life is at a point where you’re willing to give up what you have because the unknown has to be better, then fine, vote for change. Just understand that people who promise to change our lives, especially if they lack experience, can make them worse.

We are re-learning the sad lessons that eloquent speech is not the same as substance, that a man who has the look of a leader doesn’t mean he is one, and that improvisation is a talent but not a strategy. One cause of the economic crisis is that financial institutions bought products whose risks were poorly understood. Last November the American people did the same. © 2009 Stephen Yuen