6 ms·

The defense of hundred million dollar CEO paychecks in this thread feels like some bizarre Stockholm syndrome.

pfarnsworth 11y ago
I chalk it up to the fact that everyone here believes they are going to be the CEO of their own multi-billion dollar startup, and when that happens, they want their own $100M/yr pay package as well.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- julep 11y ago
  cosigned
- untog 11y ago
  That is, after all, the hope that a lot of Silicon Valley startups (and VCs, naturally) depend upon. It was very liberating once I'd got that idea out of my head.
  - dmix 11y ago
    Incorrect, most of us just like to build stuff. The money is a nice perk to continue building even more stuff. Becoming a successful entrepreneur means people like Elon Musk not corporate CEO's like Marissa Mayer...
    - caseysoftware 11y ago
      I think every major company has three management stages: creators, maintainers, and mooches. The creators are the ones who bring things to life and redefine or create markets. There are very few of these people and they're often hard to work with because their very mindset requires them to ignore the rules. Elon Musk and Steve Jobs fall into this category. The managers are the ones who can take something that exists, refine and grow it, and provide stability over a longer run. They tend to be rule followers and understand "the formula" and how it works. They may occasionally have those "creator" flashes and make a leap but that's not their purpose or goal. Finally are the mooches. They know the rules and go through the motions so they're easily mistaken for the "maintainer" types but they're not there to promote stability. They want to get their piece of the pie and move on.. like locusts.
- colordrops 11y ago
  "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." - Ronald Wright
  - refurb 11y ago
    I always thought this quote was a great example of "those poor people are too stupid to figure out what's good for them. No worries, i'm smart enough to know what's best"
    - colordrops 11y ago
      Poor are often uneducated and ignorant of how they are being taken advantage of, yes.
      - refurb 11y ago
        Has anyone actually asked them what they want?
        colordrops 11y ago
        What a strange question. I've been poor for more than one period of my life. And I've had differing ideologies at differing periods, including both full-blown objectivist libertarian and full-blown ban-money communist. I can tell you though that it has nothing to do with ideology, and more about getting to a basic standard of living. The government of the US is extremely corrupted and wasteful, and unable to support this standard of living for many, and the propaganda fed to the public, poor or not, is meant to convince people otherwise. Poor people in China believe the country should go back to full communism. Plenty of poor in the US believe that the country should deregulate as much as possible. What do you think causes this difference in opinion? Could it be genetic? Or perhaps it's the ideas they are fed through the education system and top-down controlled media.
- refurb 11y ago
  Or it could be people thinking "just because someone has more money than I doesn't mean they took it from me. Good for them."
  - rantanplan 11y ago
    And then there are people with basic intelligence that understand that, basically, yes they take that money from the rest of the people. You know, mostly because money doesn't grow on trees. When a certain part of economy inflates some other part deflates. And that other part might be more important than unicorn companies that are pure bubbles full of hot air offering exaclty 0 in the society. I hope you cheerlead with a lot of gusto for the golden boys. After all they didn't take money out of your pockets? Right? Right???
    - refurb 11y ago
      It's not a zero sum game. New wealth can be created. And yes, if Yahoo decides to pay ridiculous compensation to their CEO, I don't care. I don't own any Yahoo stock.
  - newjersey 11y ago
    But they absolutely took it from me when they are being paid by a publicly traded company. I am more convinced every day that the marginal income tax above a certain limit (my proposal is 100 * 2000 * minimum wage per hour, I'm willing to go lower to build consensus) above which the income shall be taxed at 90% of the additional income. It is the right thing to do. I want companies to go to the executives and say "look, it costs us too much to give you any more money. Please try to cooperate." It is the right thing to do.
    - refurb 11y ago
      It only your money if you own stock in that company. If you do own stock, then get enough shareholders together to vote on executive compensation. That's the proper mechanism. If you can't get enough shareholders to change things, then I guess it's not that big of a problem to most. The other option is just don't own stock. That's your choice.
- Idontagree 11y ago
  I always laugh at this because there are only room for so many $100M/yr people in this world, at least until technology takes another huge leap forward. But more importantly until that happens, I think we probably have all the ones we can handle, or at least the majority...
insertnickname 11y ago
What a company pays their CEO doesn't have anything to do with you (unless of course you're a stockholder).
- eternalban 11y ago
  Well, something. The hypothetical company exists in a society.
  - insertnickname 11y ago
    Sure, but it's still none of anyone else' business.
    - mfisher87 11y ago
      So what you're saying is that a business can not negatively impact the society it exists in in any way, so shut the hell up with your criticism? I'm glad you're here to enhance this conversation.
    - jasonwatkinspdx 11y ago
      It's a public company.
  - refurb 11y ago
    Everything exists in society. If that's the filter you'd like to use, then be prepared for the gov't having a lot more say about how you run your life.
- untog 11y ago
  That doesn't mean you can't have an opinion on it. And I'd wager it does have something to do with many people. CEO salary increases don't happen in a bubble - there has been an unprecedented increase in them while income growth in the middle class has stagnated horribly.
  - ericd 11y ago
yuzi 11y ago
I see it as defending the free market economy. I don't think any of them deserve hundred million dollar pay checks, but really the supply/demand of talented CEOs is so out of whack that the pay scales have ballooned. Welcome to capitalism. What I don't understand is why this general problem with CEO pay has to degrade into targeted Mayer bashing.
- digler999 11y ago
  you "dont understand" why the chief executive of a company should be targeted with criticism based on how said company performed ? So they should just get paid and not have any responsibilities whatsoever ?
- malyk 11y ago
  I see it as defending an "old boys club(now including women!)" who sit on tons of overlapping boards and conspire to "keep it in the family" and "reward" the "successful" businessperson. The reality is that CEO pay isn't based on performance. its based on some bizarre dance done in the highest boardrooms designed to extract the most wealth possible for the 2 - 5 years someone is CEO regardless of how they run the company.
  - yuzi 11y ago
    Welcome to corporate America. I agree with you, but the people on this forum are not writing comments defending the old boys club when they suggest her pay is not abnormal in the market. If we want to change these things it requires changes in government and regulation so we need to lobby for that change.
  - johan_larson 11y ago
    The dynamic seems to be a) if things are bad, we need to pay top dollar to keep valuable executive talent to fix it, and b) if things are good, we should shower rewards on the executives who made it happen. Heads I win, tails you lose. It's a nice place to be.
- jordanb 11y ago
  CEO pay has little to do with the free market and everything to do with the principle-agent problem. In 1983 the average CEO was paid wages equal to 50 average employees. Today the ratio is over 300:1. If this is the free market at work then our economy and society is doing something profoundly wrong to produce such an enormous shortfall in qualified CEOs. Clearly we need to identify what's wrong with our upper classes that they no longer seem to be able to produce qualified senior-executives. Maybe they're being educated improperly? Perhaps social problems endemic to that type of person can explain the executive skills gap? In the meantime, at the very least, we need to have a temporary guest worker program to ensure our companies aren't crippled by senior executive shortages.

I chalk it up to the fact that everyone here believes they are going to be the CEO of their own multi-billion dollar startup, and when that happens, they want their own $100M/yr pay package as well.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
julep 11y ago
cosigned
untog 11y ago
That is, after all, the hope that a lot of Silicon Valley startups (and VCs, naturally) depend upon. It was very liberating once I'd got that idea out of my head.
- dmix 11y ago
  Incorrect, most of us just like to build stuff. The money is a nice perk to continue building even more stuff. Becoming a successful entrepreneur means people like Elon Musk not corporate CEO's like Marissa Mayer...
  - caseysoftware 11y ago
    I think every major company has three management stages: creators, maintainers, and mooches. The creators are the ones who bring things to life and redefine or create markets. There are very few of these people and they're often hard to work with because their very mindset requires them to ignore the rules. Elon Musk and Steve Jobs fall into this category. The managers are the ones who can take something that exists, refine and grow it, and provide stability over a longer run. They tend to be rule followers and understand "the formula" and how it works. They may occasionally have those "creator" flashes and make a leap but that's not their purpose or goal. Finally are the mooches. They know the rules and go through the motions so they're easily mistaken for the "maintainer" types but they're not there to promote stability. They want to get their piece of the pie and move on.. like locusts.
colordrops 11y ago
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." - Ronald Wright
- refurb 11y ago
  I always thought this quote was a great example of "those poor people are too stupid to figure out what's good for them. No worries, i'm smart enough to know what's best"
  - colordrops 11y ago
    Poor are often uneducated and ignorant of how they are being taken advantage of, yes.
    - refurb 11y ago
      Has anyone actually asked them what they want?
      - colordrops 11y ago
        What a strange question. I've been poor for more than one period of my life. And I've had differing ideologies at differing periods, including both full-blown objectivist libertarian and full-blown ban-money communist. I can tell you though that it has nothing to do with ideology, and more about getting to a basic standard of living. The government of the US is extremely corrupted and wasteful, and unable to support this standard of living for many, and the propaganda fed to the public, poor or not, is meant to convince people otherwise. Poor people in China believe the country should go back to full communism. Plenty of poor in the US believe that the country should deregulate as much as possible. What do you think causes this difference in opinion? Could it be genetic? Or perhaps it's the ideas they are fed through the education system and top-down controlled media.
refurb 11y ago
Or it could be people thinking "just because someone has more money than I doesn't mean they took it from me. Good for them."
- rantanplan 11y ago
  And then there are people with basic intelligence that understand that, basically, yes they take that money from the rest of the people. You know, mostly because money doesn't grow on trees. When a certain part of economy inflates some other part deflates. And that other part might be more important than unicorn companies that are pure bubbles full of hot air offering exaclty 0 in the society. I hope you cheerlead with a lot of gusto for the golden boys. After all they didn't take money out of your pockets? Right? Right???
  - refurb 11y ago
    It's not a zero sum game. New wealth can be created. And yes, if Yahoo decides to pay ridiculous compensation to their CEO, I don't care. I don't own any Yahoo stock.
- newjersey 11y ago
  But they absolutely took it from me when they are being paid by a publicly traded company. I am more convinced every day that the marginal income tax above a certain limit (my proposal is 100 * 2000 * minimum wage per hour, I'm willing to go lower to build consensus) above which the income shall be taxed at 90% of the additional income. It is the right thing to do. I want companies to go to the executives and say "look, it costs us too much to give you any more money. Please try to cooperate." It is the right thing to do.
  - refurb 11y ago
    It only your money if you own stock in that company. If you do own stock, then get enough shareholders together to vote on executive compensation. That's the proper mechanism. If you can't get enough shareholders to change things, then I guess it's not that big of a problem to most. The other option is just don't own stock. That's your choice.
Idontagree 11y ago
I always laugh at this because there are only room for so many $100M/yr people in this world, at least until technology takes another huge leap forward. But more importantly until that happens, I think we probably have all the ones we can handle, or at least the majority...

insertnickname 11y ago

What a company pays their CEO doesn't have anything to do with you (unless of course you're a stockholder).

eternalban 11y ago
Well, something. The hypothetical company exists in a society.
- insertnickname 11y ago
  Sure, but it's still none of anyone else' business.
  - mfisher87 11y ago
    So what you're saying is that a business can not negatively impact the society it exists in in any way, so shut the hell up with your criticism? I'm glad you're here to enhance this conversation.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 11y ago
    It's a public company.
- refurb 11y ago
  Everything exists in society. If that's the filter you'd like to use, then be prepared for the gov't having a lot more say about how you run your life.
untog 11y ago
That doesn't mean you can't have an opinion on it. And I'd wager it does have something to do with many people. CEO salary increases don't happen in a bubble - there has been an unprecedented increase in them while income growth in the middle class has stagnated horribly.
- ericd 11y ago

yuzi 11y ago

I see it as defending the free market economy. I don't think any of them deserve hundred million dollar pay checks, but really the supply/demand of talented CEOs is so out of whack that the pay scales have ballooned. Welcome to capitalism. What I don't understand is why this general problem with CEO pay has to degrade into targeted Mayer bashing.

digler999 11y ago
you "dont understand" why the chief executive of a company should be targeted with criticism based on how said company performed ? So they should just get paid and not have any responsibilities whatsoever ?
malyk 11y ago
I see it as defending an "old boys club(now including women!)" who sit on tons of overlapping boards and conspire to "keep it in the family" and "reward" the "successful" businessperson. The reality is that CEO pay isn't based on performance. its based on some bizarre dance done in the highest boardrooms designed to extract the most wealth possible for the 2 - 5 years someone is CEO regardless of how they run the company.
- yuzi 11y ago
  Welcome to corporate America. I agree with you, but the people on this forum are not writing comments defending the old boys club when they suggest her pay is not abnormal in the market. If we want to change these things it requires changes in government and regulation so we need to lobby for that change.
- johan_larson 11y ago
  The dynamic seems to be a) if things are bad, we need to pay top dollar to keep valuable executive talent to fix it, and b) if things are good, we should shower rewards on the executives who made it happen. Heads I win, tails you lose. It's a nice place to be.
jordanb 11y ago
CEO pay has little to do with the free market and everything to do with the principle-agent problem. In 1983 the average CEO was paid wages equal to 50 average employees. Today the ratio is over 300:1. If this is the free market at work then our economy and society is doing something profoundly wrong to produce such an enormous shortfall in qualified CEOs. Clearly we need to identify what's wrong with our upper classes that they no longer seem to be able to produce qualified senior-executives. Maybe they're being educated improperly? Perhaps social problems endemic to that type of person can explain the executive skills gap? In the meantime, at the very least, we need to have a temporary guest worker program to ensure our companies aren't crippled by senior executive shortages.