If Marissa Meyer orders everyone to work from home, then that can be attributed to her. She can take credit for that. It was her action. But if the stock price goes up $5 today, there's no way to show it was a result of ordering everyone to work from home. If you want to make the argument that Meyers actions led to 33b in market cap growth then make that argument. What did Meyer personally do that caused the growth in market cap, and how?
Your original assertion was generic; that a janitor has as much impact on market cap as a CEO. So let's stick with that.
Consider: the CEO of Ford decides Ford will no longer sell petrol based cars (getting the board to go along with it too) and then executes that strategy.
If it succeeds then the market cap of Ford will increase. If it fails then it will decrease.
On the flip side, no matter how clean a janitor can make the facilities, he can't dictate corporate strategy and Wall Street doesn't care how clean Ford's bathrooms are.
This doesn't diminish the importance of a good janitor, but let's be honest about the limits of their impact.
I agree, the fact she got them to pay so much is quite impressive. I definitely cant see that much value in whats left but I guess the Verizon board was somehow able to.
But the stock price could have fallen. She should be credited with negotiating the deal and selling the company for 4.5B, and when she resigns the market cap isn't going to drop. She's not responsible for the market cap at all.
If you owned a share of the company, why would you sell to another investor for less than Verizon agreed to pay? Share prices rose 8.5% directly as a result of the price she negotiated with Verizon.
If Marissa Meyer orders everyone to work from home, then that can be attributed to her. She can take credit for that. It was her action. But if the stock price goes up $5 today, there's no way to show it was a result of ordering everyone to work from home. If you want to make the argument that Meyers actions led to 33b in market cap growth then make that argument. What did Meyer personally do that caused the growth in market cap, and how?