If You Want To Be a CEO Become An Engineer First - How Money Works

there's never been actually data like this before  we've never known what CEOs actually do and and   now we have some really rich data that we can dig  into Fortune 500 CEOs consistently make headlines   for making more money in a single year than most  of us could hope to earn in our entire lives   in 2020 the top 350 CEOs in the US made over  24 million dollars on average that means at my   current salary I'd have to work over I don't know  281 years to make what they made in one year Tim   Cook the CEO of Apple was awarded 853 million  dollars in total compensation for his work in   2021. Mr Tim Apple wasn't even the biggest  earner last year rivian CEO RJ skarange took   home 2.3 billion dollars in total compensation  Good morning Joe lots of comparisons now between   Elon Musk and rivian founder RJ skaringe but  while musk owns more than 20 percent of Tesla   RJ owns only about 1.7 of Rivia now RJ is now  a billionaire and the one and only Elon Musk   was awarded more than 10 billion dollars  in Tesla options stop if you don't like it   suppose so yeah I mean from the money that you  sell all your stuff you could buy new stuff   perhaps these two are a little more deserving  because they were the founders or very early   personal investors in highly risky companies  utilizing unproven technology but most CEOs   didn't take such personal risk and many are still  enjoying nine-figure salaries that is not my fault   this isn't another video to complain about how  unfair it is that the average Fortune 500 CEO   is now earning more than 324 times the median  employee at their company we have all heard   it before and it doesn't look like it's going  to change anytime soon no matter how much the   internet complains about it now would be a good  time to remember the age-old anecdote if you can't   beat them join them so it's time to learn how  money Works to get yourself a step-by-step guide   on Landing a job as an egregiously overcompensated  corporate fat CEO this week's lesson was brought   to you by Helix and you will need a good  night's sleep if you want to become a CEO for   a while I had told myself the reason I didn't  sleep well was simply because I was stressed   and that it came with the territory of being an  investment banker since I quit that job I still   haven't been able to get a good night's sleep  that is until I got my Helix mattress everybody   is different and Helix knows that so they made a  sleep quiz that matches your unique body type and   sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you  as a side sleeper who prefers a mattress that's   not too hard not too soft medium feel the quiz  suggested the midnight Luxe king mattress was   the right one for me it provides luxury memory  foam for pressure point reliefs on my hips and   shoulders so I don't feel like I've injured  myself when I wake up in the morning I even got   the glacio attacks cooling cover on my mattress  and it keeps me cool when I sleep I've had my   Helix sleep for a month now and I am shocked  with how much different my sleep experience has   been with it I recommended it to my parents and  they took the Helix sleep quiz and now have one   too the best part of all of this is that Helix  delivers your mattress right to your door with   free shipping in the US the mattress comes rolled  up in a box and is super easy to set up yourself if it makes you nervous to buy something you  haven't tried Helix has a 100 night sleep trial   so you'll get more than three months to make sure  that you love it if you don't they'll pick it up   for you and you'll get a full refund plus Helix  mattresses have a 10 year warranty and they even   offer financing options and flexible payment  plans so a great night's sleep is never far   away Helix sleep makes mattresses and bedding that  are customized to fit your needs and conveniently   shipped right to your door I love my Helix  and I think you would too if you are looking   for a new bed check out Helix you can click on  the link below or go to helixsleep.com forward   slash how many works and get up to 200 off your  Helix mattress plus two free pillows of the 500   CEOs on the fortune magazines list only 21 were  the founders or co-founders of the companies they   lead so if you want the abbreviated step-by-step  guide then step one start a multi-billion dollar   company and don't get fired by the board or retire  congratulations you're now at Fortune 500 CEO That   Was Easy by the time you have completed step  one of this guide you will probably already   be a billionaire so maybe the thought of a day  job however well compensated might have lost its   appeal anyway 21 out of 500 is pretty bad odds  so let's go for the more involved but safer set   of instructions the remaining 479 chief executive  officers got their jobs by working their way up   through corporate roles which starts with college  I know my video last week was all about thinking   twice before committing to a college degree but  if you want the top job at one of these companies   a degree is mandatory every single non-founding  CEO of a Fortune 500 company has a college degree   out of the 21 founding CEOs 16 of them have at  least a bachelor's degree and the remaining five   like Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of schools like  Harvard because their businesses started taking   off before they could finish their degree I know  the story of a high school dropout starting a   successful company is popular but the numbers  don't lie if you want to get to this level you   need to go to college Society has rules and the  first rule is you go to college you want to have   a happy and successful life you go to college if  you want to be somebody you go to college if you   want to fit in you go to college you also need  to go to a good college almost 10 percent of   the list of non-founding CEOs went to just one  particular school that's right DeVry University   yeah no obviously it was Harvard the other Ivy  League schools are very well represented in this   group of CEOs as well once you get into one of  these schools you need to pick what to study   41 of Fortune 500 CEOs have an MBA which is a  masters of Business Administration so that's   a solid pick MBA programs focus on business  structures corporate governance and the rules   of Executives and organizations so it makes sense  that this is a top pick a lot of companies will   actually make their senior Executives complete  an MBA part-time while working their regular   hours it's a grueling task on top of the regular  commitments of a corporate executive but sometimes   the companies actually pay for their Executives  to get these degrees because of how valuable   they can be in addition to the lessons you learn  about the general mechanics of running a company   the connections you can make at an ivy league  are worth the tuition costs themselves so many   powerful and influential people coming from these  schools creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of more   people coming from these schools because they  spent their time there interacting with powerful   and influential people so if you want to be a  fortune fan 500 CEO your best chance will come   from getting into an Ivy League MBA program and  networking like crazy while you're there but an   MBA is a master's degree master's degrees are  postgraduate degrees which means you need to   get an undergraduate or bachelor's degree first  picking the right degree straight out of high   school might feel like a bit of a crap shoot but  Fortune 500 CEOs overwhelmingly favor one type of   degree above the others you might think this would  be a business finance or economics degree but you   would be wrong 97 of the 500 CEOs on this list  studied engineering as an undergraduate there is   some selection bias to this engineering is a tough  degree to get into and unlike law or medicine it   does not have a narrow path of progression but  Engineers are still a highly prized asset in the   business World Fortune 500 CEO Engineers who were  interviewed about their careers admitted that they   chose to study engineering because it had the  lowest unemployment rates and great options for   career advancement people that are thinking like  that at the age of 18 are people that will go on   the lead Fortune 500 company companies and people  like that pick engineering we hire great Engineers   as fast as we can find them Engineers are trained  to be good with numbers and complicated sets of   information but they are also trained to use their  skills to complete projects while collaborating   with other people with differing expertise  Engineers are also quite valuable to startups   as early technical employees the list of Fortune  500 companies is dominated by businesses that were   one startups not very long ago and early employees  with the right skills are prime candidates for the   top job once the founder steps down the school  you complete your bachelor's degree at is much   less important than the school you get your  MBA from the most represented undergraduate   school amongst the Fortune 500 CEOs was still  harbored but only three of them went for their   bachelor's degree with the rest of the list spread  out amongst more than 300 other schools so just go   to the best school you can and work on being near  the top of your class which will make Step 2 a lot   easier the average age of a Fortune 500 CEO is 57  so don't worry once you have graduated from your   engineering degree you have plenty of time to work  on your career to get yourself into a Harvard MBA   if you want to be the CEO of a big company  you have two options option one is to start   working with promising startups if you hit your  wagon to the next school or Amazon you will be   a prime Contender for the top job and you would  have likely picked up some stock options along   the way according to the New York Times the  average net worth of the first 2200 Microsoft   employees is over 10 million dollars so even if  they never made CEO they shouldn't ever need to   work again this strategy is very risky because  for every Microsoft there are thousands of other   businesses with 2200 employees that don't grow  at all or even worse end up going bankrupt to   increase your chances of making this strategy  work you should Target a business with around 1   000 employees with good institutional backing  from a private Equity Firm and operating in a   field with a lot of room for growth Tech Finance  health care and direct to Consumer are all good   options once you land that first job you gotta do  the hard part which is work like crazy Outlast the   other employees hope the company does well and be  be in the right place at the right time when the   founder steps back and needs a new CEO if you  want to take a more active Approach at Landing   the top job then you should start your career off  in a more established company preferably one with   a good amount of business pedigree bulge rack  and investment Banks like Goldman and high-end   management consulting firms like McKinsey should  be your top pick I'll explain why later but the   competition for graduate programs that these  companies is fierce so if you can't get in here   almost any big company will do your mission at  this stage is to get to an executive level role   as quickly as possible doing good work is critical  to this but it will only get you so far you need   to Market yourself in every way that you can to  become your own brand name in the industry social   media if used correctly can be great for this  my good friend Richard over at the plain bagel   works as an investment analyst but he is well  known outside of his firm because of his YouTube   channel now you don't have to take it that far  but putting yourself out there will mean that you   can make it a lot easier for you to jump between  jobs as you skip up the corporate ladder internal   promotions are slow and difficult to get in most  large companies the average employee that switches   employers every two years earns fifty percent more  than the average employee that stays around for   longer if you do a good job of marketing yourself  inside your industry you are more likely to walk   into a job interview where the recruiter already  knows about you or something good you have done   which is a huge advantage over the regular schmuck  with less than 500 connections on their LinkedIn   profile you can also fast track this process  the reason working at a top investment banker   management consulting firm is a good place to  start is because you can work two years at one   of these institutions as an analyst and gain  more experience than you would in a decade at   a regular company recruiters know this so the  exit opportunities for bankers and Consultants   can be extremely good and you can often score  an executive level role before you are 30. the   traditional route would be to go from an analyst  to a team lead to a manager and then finally on to   an executive which will take a lot more time  unless you get lucky with your job switching   a word of advice based on my own experience and  no further research at all is that if you do want   to go the investment banking or Consulting route  you should avoid an exit into tech companies even   if you are an engineer by education you should be  able to land a good job with these outfits but it   will be difficult to move up because the culture  of these businesses tend to look down with their   soy lattes and on tap kombucha on the old school  business Bros who totally don't even know how to   hacky sack a better plan is to get a job at a big  company that is really boring a boring company is   going to have less young Talent which means you  won't be competing against every other Hot Shot   career driven 30 year old to get an executive  position once you have worked yourself into a   role where you are overseeing at least 200 other  employees it's time again to start thinking about   that Harvard MBA personal branding is again going  to play a big role in getting you into this highly   coveted course Harvard and other Ivy League  schools like to brag about how many presidents   Supreme Court Justices and Fortune 500 CEOs went  to their schools and the best way for them to   maintain those bragging rights is to only educate  people who their mission office thinks is likely   to go on to be a president Supreme Court Justice  or Fortune 500 CEO if you can talk confidently and   provide proof to an admissions officer about how  you have reshaped your industry you are a lot more   likely to get in you will also need to do the GMAT  which is a test to assess your business acumen   if you seriously want to be a Fortune 500 CEO this  is just one of many tests you would have taken   in your career so study hard and you should  Ace it once you have received your MBA from   Harvard life should be pretty good for you the  average salary of a Harvard MBA in their first   year after graduation is 207 000 and that figure  should be significantly higher if you go back into   an industry where you already have executive  experience your next goal is the c-suite and   to get there in a Fortune 500 company you're going  to need to double down on that personal branding   at this level it is not unusual for individuals  to hire the help of public relations consultant   to arrange for them to give speeches and appear in  media so they are appealing to high-end recruiters   but also to company directors and shareholders  who ultimately have the final say over who gets   to be the chief executive top CEOs do earn a  lot of money and no they don't work 320 times   harder than the average worker but they do have  the potential to make or lose investors a lot   more money than 320 regular employees ever could  part of that is just brand ending if an executive   that the general public sees on the news every  morning is announced as a new CEO of a company it   can boost the share price significantly the other  side of that is if somebody that nobody has ever   heard of has announced then it will raise a lot  of questions about who is leading the company even   if that person is just as technically competent  as a person with a PR team behind them even if   you do absolutely everything right you still  probably have about a one percent chance at   best at becoming the CEO of a Fortune 500 company  but that's okay even if you stray away from this   exact path you are still going to be making a lot  of money and working in a very exciting role but   it will come at a huge personal cost you have to  decide if long hours for years on end are worth   it for the chance to have your salary ridiculed by  every Congressman proposing a new tax bill because   oh yeah that's right if you do end up becoming the  CEO of a public company your income will become   public record so if you wouldn't feel comfortable  putting up your paycheck on Facebook maybe the   job isn't for you after all we enjoy the right to  keep our personal finances private which makes you   wonder how we work out how rich the billionaires  these CEOs will be working for actually are if you   want to find out frankly scary strategies that  journalists use to work out how much someone   is worth to make their billionaires list go and  watch my video on why net worth lists are complete   nonsense thanks again to Helix for making it  possible to keep on learning how money works

Channel: How Money Works

Views: 751,026

Keywords: average ceo pay, why are ceo paid so much, fortune 500, fortune 500 ceo, how to become a ceo, most ceo are engineers, top degree of ceo, ceo college, harvard mba, how money works, how history works, highest paid ceo, elon musk salary, tim cook salary, top ceo salary, what degree to become a ceo, career planning, personal branding, top college degree, highest paid college degree, starting your own business, how to run a business

Id: 5RTbcwKl_RM

Length: 15min 19sec (919 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 10 2022