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I'm a trainee Tricor Signs In the immediate postwar era, corporate managers held a tight grip over their firms and their own careers. Then, in the 1970s and ’80s, the capital markets began to assert themselves. Investors mounted, and won, hostile takeover bids against managers who were underperforming. Even CEOs who avoided that fate faced more assertive shareholders. Chief executives who were once kings now had bosses who could fire them. In 1982, the average CEO tenure was 9.7 years; by 2002, it had dropped to 6.8 years. But chief executives were amply compensated for their loss of autonomy; between 1978 and 2011, CEO compensation increased more than 725 percent. To understand how extraordinary that leap was, consider the fact that worker compensation grew by just 5.7 percent over those same three decades.