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If someone is offering 50m/year then surely the most qualified candidates would compete for that job and treat the 10m/year offer as a backup plan. Meaning you

If someone is offering 50m/year then surely the most qualified candidates would compete for that job and treat the 10m/year offer as a backup plan. Meaning you wouldn’t get the best people. As for governments and non-profits: they don’t get the best people, either, unless those people are personally motivated by the mission in a way that is unlikely in a commercial setting.

ModernMech 7y ago
You don't necessarily get the most qualified people; you get the people most motivated by power and money. It's part of the reason 1 in 5 CEOs are psychopaths: https://www.psychology.org.au/news/media_releases/13September2016/Brooks/ https://www.psychology.org.au/news/media_releases/13Septembe...
- philwelch 7y ago
  So by that reasoning, LeBron James (who earns a salary of $37 million) isn't a better basketball player than Maurice Harkless ($11 million); he's just "motivated by power and money". I wonder how you would take it if someone offered you a small fraction of your current salary and suggested you were "motivated by money" if you didn't accept it? Are you also arguing that it's fundamentally impossible for any business executive to be as valuable to a business as LeBron James is to the Lakers?
  - ModernMech 7y ago
    If I were paid a tiny fraction of what I make now I wouldn't be able to feed myself. Someone making 50 mil vs 10 mil is able to take care of all their human needs either way. I'm motivated to make the money I do by my desire to stay alive. But this 50 mil vs 10 mil argument isn't in a vacuum. It's 50mil vs 10mil for them versus $7 an hour for those at the bottom. People motivated to take those salaries when that kind of inequality exists aren't exactly looking out for the greater good. I'm arguing that the people who actually make the things and provide the services that make companies valuable are the workers at the bottom. The CEOs at the top are really good at squeezing every last drop of productivity out of them for minuscule pay and benefits, and trashing the environment whenever possible. That's the skillset of a psycho/sociopath. These people tend to do things like, I don't know, keep knowledge about the possibility of a deadly virus outbreak on a cruise ship from passengers.
Retric 7y ago
That assumes the difference between the 50m person and the 10m person is worth 40m. Sports teams for example actually pay those kind of salaries, but individual teams don’t just blow unlimited budget on a tiny number of the most expensive players for each position. As to the pool of most qualified candidates, it’s company specific. The ideal CEO for Microsoft is different from the ideal CEO for Boing.

ModernMech 7y ago

You don't necessarily get the most qualified people; you get the people most motivated by power and money. It's part of the reason 1 in 5 CEOs are psychopaths: https://www.psychology.org.au/news/media_releases/13September2016/Brooks/ https://www.psychology.org.au/news/media_releases/13Septembe...

philwelch 7y ago
So by that reasoning, LeBron James (who earns a salary of $37 million) isn't a better basketball player than Maurice Harkless ($11 million); he's just "motivated by power and money". I wonder how you would take it if someone offered you a small fraction of your current salary and suggested you were "motivated by money" if you didn't accept it? Are you also arguing that it's fundamentally impossible for any business executive to be as valuable to a business as LeBron James is to the Lakers?
- ModernMech 7y ago
  If I were paid a tiny fraction of what I make now I wouldn't be able to feed myself. Someone making 50 mil vs 10 mil is able to take care of all their human needs either way. I'm motivated to make the money I do by my desire to stay alive. But this 50 mil vs 10 mil argument isn't in a vacuum. It's 50mil vs 10mil for them versus $7 an hour for those at the bottom. People motivated to take those salaries when that kind of inequality exists aren't exactly looking out for the greater good. I'm arguing that the people who actually make the things and provide the services that make companies valuable are the workers at the bottom. The CEOs at the top are really good at squeezing every last drop of productivity out of them for minuscule pay and benefits, and trashing the environment whenever possible. That's the skillset of a psycho/sociopath. These people tend to do things like, I don't know, keep knowledge about the possibility of a deadly virus outbreak on a cruise ship from passengers.

Retric 7y ago

That assumes the difference between the 50m person and the 10m person is worth 40m. Sports teams for example actually pay those kind of salaries, but individual teams don’t just blow unlimited budget on a tiny number of the most expensive players for each position. As to the pool of most qualified candidates, it’s company specific. The ideal CEO for Microsoft is different from the ideal CEO for Boing.