A CEO’s personality offers insights into how that CEO leads his/her company. For example, NLP techniques applied to earnings call transcripts uncover CEO personality attributes that speak to a propensity for undertaking unnecessary risk. For example, Tesla CEO Elon Musk scores low in a couple of key areas (analysis HERE), such that his “outside the norm” behavior is hardly a surprise. If the SEC had the same teeth as it did when I broke into the business some 25 years ago it’s safe to say Mr. Musk would likely be barred from running public companies and from serving on public company boards. This statement says as much about the rule of law in the United States today – including the capital markets – as it does about Mr. Musk and cowboy CEOs like him.
