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> Want me as CEO of GroupOn or Yahoo? Damned straight you're giving me a severance package whether I screw up or not, otherwise I'm taking a less risky job. Wh

by adevine 11y ago

> Want me as CEO of GroupOn or Yahoo? Damned straight you're giving me a severance package whether I screw up or not, otherwise I'm taking a less risky job. Why? Tons of employees take on this risk when joining a startup, and they don't get a huge severance package. Risk should be aligned with reward - if you succeed you should be very well compensated for a risky gig, but if you fail you shouldn't also be very well compensated. The only reason these large CEO severance packages exist is because other CEOs sign these deals, and who doesn't want to be on the "heads I win tails you lose" side of a deal.

mikestew 11y ago
Why? I said why: I'll take the equally-well-paying and less risky job over at FoobarCorp, which is turning a profit and shows no signs of doing otherwise for the foreseeable future, where I might be employed for a good long while and leave without a black mark on my resume. If I'm going to have the albatross around my neck of not turning around an already screwed company, you're paying me whether I turn it around or not. Don't shoot the messenger, I don't like it any more than you do. I'm just laying out what the current incentive system is. Should Fiorina just scraped by on her $4 million/year (or whatever it was) salary, and made big stacks from her options when she turned HP around? Sure, just like the rest of us. But that, unfortunately, isn't the way it works. Instead the rest of us get to sit around saying, "hell, I would have been happy to fuck up HP for half that amount", because we're not members of the "get paid whether you do a decent job or not" club.
refurb 11y ago
Tons of employees take on this risk when joining a startup, and they don't get a huge severance package. Yes, but tons of employees don't get hired into key roles that can make or break a company. It's no different than the packages you see tech companies give "rock stars" who are nowhere near the CEO level. If they really want the person, they'll bend over backwards to throw guaranteed compensation at them.

by adevine 11y ago

mikestew 11y ago

Why? I said why: I'll take the equally-well-paying and less risky job over at FoobarCorp, which is turning a profit and shows no signs of doing otherwise for the foreseeable future, where I might be employed for a good long while and leave without a black mark on my resume. If I'm going to have the albatross around my neck of not turning around an already screwed company, you're paying me whether I turn it around or not. Don't shoot the messenger, I don't like it any more than you do. I'm just laying out what the current incentive system is. Should Fiorina just scraped by on her $4 million/year (or whatever it was) salary, and made big stacks from her options when she turned HP around? Sure, just like the rest of us. But that, unfortunately, isn't the way it works. Instead the rest of us get to sit around saying, "hell, I would have been happy to fuck up HP for half that amount", because we're not members of the "get paid whether you do a decent job or not" club.

refurb 11y ago

Tons of employees take on this risk when joining a startup, and they don't get a huge severance package. Yes, but tons of employees don't get hired into key roles that can make or break a company. It's no different than the packages you see tech companies give "rock stars" who are nowhere near the CEO level. If they really want the person, they'll bend over backwards to throw guaranteed compensation at them.