This seems an odd view to take. What about cases such as traders who are able to make a loss of $200K for the company in one year (so that the company is reall

This seems an odd view to take. What about cases such as traders who are able to make a loss of $200K for the company in one year (so that the company is really out their full $200K trading balance as a loss, plus their entire fully loaded HR cost) and a gain of $14M in another (exceptional) year? While you might call their positions only "luck", this is not how it's viewed in the financial industry, and IMO correctly. So what motivates the trader to go all out (if movies are any guide they even do drugs), 100 hour weeks, and making their staff and assistants work all weekend and nights, with super important and last-minute requests disrupting everyone's lives, in order to help close the position with the right timing, that will net the company $14M? You think he should really have a $800K salary with $650K of that as a bonus "not to be considered to be pay for performance?" Plus, the more leveraged the trader is, then depending on the mechanism it could be far less expensive if he fails but a far more spectacular win if he is motivated to put in the time. Further requiring pay for performance. A last example is in the startup scene, where equity is seen to be a motivating factor that makes people billions, who (as an actual fact, this is actual reality we're talking about) would not have done the same work for ANY salary "to be withdrawn"? When you take a founder who makes a $1B company in 7 years as CEO there is, quite literally no salary "including a non-performance pay bonus" that results in the exact same CEO creating the exact same $1B of value in the same time period. I'm not talking about where the financing comes from. I mean that the CEO just wouldn't achieve the same result. there are some performance outcomes you just can't buy (even if they are the exception rather than the rule.)