9 ms·

Yeah, I feel like the phrasing is just completely wack. It's one thing if the argument is that execs do bring value, and you need to pay that much to have good

Yeah, I feel like the phrasing is just completely wack. It's one thing if the argument is that execs do bring value, and you need to pay that much to have good execs, but >That's too big a discount to ask people and their families to commit to. 80% discount sounds like a lot... until you realize her salary is 2.5 million/year. I'm preeetttty sure most families will do just fine on 500k a year.

mattigames 6y ago
In a world with 8 billion people nobody can claim to be worth that much money to a company, I would be surprised if there aren't at least 10.000 people in the US alone who would do her job just as well or maybe better and for less than 500K, those kind of salaries always seem result of people being able to set their own salaries or some other kind of poor management.
- xapata 6y ago
  Ok, so find one.
  - mattigames 6y ago
    Pay me to do it and I would (don't worry, I charge much less than 500K to find them)
    - xapata 6y ago
      Wouldn't the market pay you? On a second read, I see you wrote, "I would be surprised if ...". I don't remember seeing that the first time, but maybe I read too quickly. In that case, I'll turn it around: I'd be surprised if you could find anyone who can supply comparable evidence of competence who'd accept substantially less compensation.
- Peaches4Rent 6y ago
  I agree that this statement could be true. But is it provable?
  - cabalamat 6y ago
    Not quite the same thing, but there was a study a few years ago that should that CEO compensation was inversely correlated with company success.
- Mirioron 6y ago
  And how would you find one of those 10,000 out of a population of 330,000,000 that will accept less money than her? And how would you then know that they're better than she is? Surely if they're just as good as she is then the opportunities open to her would also be open to the 10,000 people.
  - mattigames 6y ago
    > Surely if they're just as good as she is then the opportunities open to her would also be open to the 10,000 people. No, and to be honest I find it hard to believe anyone believes so; a lot of those positions are picked due being friends with the right people, or coming from the same universities as the people already in executive positions, and other hundreds subjective factors that have little to nothing to do with the actual capabilities needed for the role.
- tasuki 6y ago
  On the contrary - in a world with 8 billion people it's pretty much guaranteed there's someone worth that much money to a company!
  - pintxo 6y ago
    But it's ~hard to know if~ unlikely your CEO is this single person out of 8 billion, especially because you only considered searching in a pool of optimistically maybe 1 thousand candidates.
  - mattigames 6y ago
    The graph for skilled people available for any given position with "skill" on the Y axis and "people" in the X axis is not shaped like a triangle like you are imaging, is shaped like a plateau. The only exception are extremely niche skills.
FooBarWidget 6y ago
It is a lot of money in absolute terms, for sure. But why should a CEO accept “a lot of money”, if elsewhere they can get 5x as much? All this moralizing doesn’t help. You can call people greedy as much as you want, but you have to pay market rate or you can’t find a CEO at all. People have no obligation to accept a lower than market rate salary, they have hard power leverage in negotiations in the sense that they can easily walk away from deals where you offer such a “low” salary.
- stu2b50 6y ago
  It's not moral grandstanding. I don't think the exec team earns their keep. It would be one thing if they were leading a growing non profit (that owns a for profit), but rather they're leading a quickly declining ship, all while their own salaries increase over time while they do a shitty job. The ceo of MSF, who imo does a great job, is paid 120k a year. Brian Chesky, AirBNB ceo, is paid $0 right now, because at least he can recognize how tone deaf talking about your companies financial struggles is whole you're still taking full comp.
  - true_religion 6y ago
    AirBNB isn't even a public company yet. Brian Chesky is not merely the CEO of AirBnB, he is also the cofounder with a networth of 4.1 billion dollars. It is one thing for a literal billionaire, who owns the company to undergo 'hardship' in order to save the company they built over the past 10+ years. It is a whole other thing for a mere employee to sacrifice their salary during a company downturn. To do so is an act of pure charity---which while it may be inline with ethos of a non-profit worker, isn't something that we as total 3rd parties should expect. Mitchell Baker is just an "employee", despite her long years of service. She was even fired from Netscape during a round of layoffs, and served as a mere volunteer for years.
    - kybernetikos 6y ago
      This is true, but on the other hand the justification for this compensation is that she is able to get much more elsewhere, so asking her to take less is a sacrifice. If that is true, then maybe she should go elsewhere rather than make the sacrifice. If it isn't true then maybe she is overpaid at present. Just because accepting the sacrifice might not make sense for the current ceo and family doesn't mean that asking for it doesn't make sense for mozilla.
tinus_hn 6y ago
Sure, but it does mean due to her following her personal convictions her family has 2 million less to spend.
jstummbillig 6y ago
For every job, market rates are a thing. Yes, of course you will be able to fill just about any c-role at just about any rate. But, somehow, just as with any other job, the good people – those you will actually want to fill that role – want to be paid what the market tells them they are worth. And yes, there are other factors at play. Mitchell Baker brings it up: The kind of work you do matters not only to you but also to c-level people and will be priced into the pay. Who around here (who is also actually qualified enough, that mozilla would want them) would switch over, taking a 50% pay cut over their current pay, right now? Don't tell me you couldn't. Of course you could. Would it mean changing your life style? I am sure it would. But then again, that's a apparently cool to randomly ask of people who (I am assuming) earn a lot more than you do. There are two reasonable options: You either come to terms with reality, or you change reality. The later means, in this particular case, enticing someone qualified (which includes a) being capable b) willing and c) in a social position to actually "apply" for the job) and to do it for less. Good luck.
- pantalaimon 6y ago
  > Yes, of course you will be able to fill just about any c-role at just about any rate. But, somehow, just as with any other job, the good people – those you will actually want to fill that role – want to be paid what the market tells them they are worth. How do you measure how good a CEO is? Is having to let go 25% of your staff, axing the security team and stopping new developments indicative of good performance?
  - jstummbillig 6y ago
    In isolation, no. In context of mozillas goals, challenges that arise when leading a company, and limited influence on the movement of the world, maybe. I doubt that either of us is close enough to the ground to realistically be a judge of that.
  - dutchmartin 6y ago
    Maybe that’s why c level employees should be compensated on reaching certain targets, rather than getting at least a million a year. Because, if you are the captain of a schip, you should drown with it if it capsized.

mattigames 6y ago

In a world with 8 billion people nobody can claim to be worth that much money to a company, I would be surprised if there aren't at least 10.000 people in the US alone who would do her job just as well or maybe better and for less than 500K, those kind of salaries always seem result of people being able to set their own salaries or some other kind of poor management.

xapata 6y ago
Ok, so find one.
- mattigames 6y ago
  Pay me to do it and I would (don't worry, I charge much less than 500K to find them)
  - xapata 6y ago
    Wouldn't the market pay you? On a second read, I see you wrote, "I would be surprised if ...". I don't remember seeing that the first time, but maybe I read too quickly. In that case, I'll turn it around: I'd be surprised if you could find anyone who can supply comparable evidence of competence who'd accept substantially less compensation.
Peaches4Rent 6y ago
I agree that this statement could be true. But is it provable?
- cabalamat 6y ago
  Not quite the same thing, but there was a study a few years ago that should that CEO compensation was inversely correlated with company success.
Mirioron 6y ago
And how would you find one of those 10,000 out of a population of 330,000,000 that will accept less money than her? And how would you then know that they're better than she is? Surely if they're just as good as she is then the opportunities open to her would also be open to the 10,000 people.
- mattigames 6y ago
  > Surely if they're just as good as she is then the opportunities open to her would also be open to the 10,000 people. No, and to be honest I find it hard to believe anyone believes so; a lot of those positions are picked due being friends with the right people, or coming from the same universities as the people already in executive positions, and other hundreds subjective factors that have little to nothing to do with the actual capabilities needed for the role.
tasuki 6y ago
On the contrary - in a world with 8 billion people it's pretty much guaranteed there's someone worth that much money to a company!
- pintxo 6y ago
  But it's ~hard to know if~ unlikely your CEO is this single person out of 8 billion, especially because you only considered searching in a pool of optimistically maybe 1 thousand candidates.
- mattigames 6y ago
  The graph for skilled people available for any given position with "skill" on the Y axis and "people" in the X axis is not shaped like a triangle like you are imaging, is shaped like a plateau. The only exception are extremely niche skills.

FooBarWidget 6y ago

It is a lot of money in absolute terms, for sure. But why should a CEO accept “a lot of money”, if elsewhere they can get 5x as much? All this moralizing doesn’t help. You can call people greedy as much as you want, but you have to pay market rate or you can’t find a CEO at all. People have no obligation to accept a lower than market rate salary, they have hard power leverage in negotiations in the sense that they can easily walk away from deals where you offer such a “low” salary.

stu2b50 6y ago
It's not moral grandstanding. I don't think the exec team earns their keep. It would be one thing if they were leading a growing non profit (that owns a for profit), but rather they're leading a quickly declining ship, all while their own salaries increase over time while they do a shitty job. The ceo of MSF, who imo does a great job, is paid 120k a year. Brian Chesky, AirBNB ceo, is paid $0 right now, because at least he can recognize how tone deaf talking about your companies financial struggles is whole you're still taking full comp.
- true_religion 6y ago
  AirBNB isn't even a public company yet. Brian Chesky is not merely the CEO of AirBnB, he is also the cofounder with a networth of 4.1 billion dollars. It is one thing for a literal billionaire, who owns the company to undergo 'hardship' in order to save the company they built over the past 10+ years. It is a whole other thing for a mere employee to sacrifice their salary during a company downturn. To do so is an act of pure charity---which while it may be inline with ethos of a non-profit worker, isn't something that we as total 3rd parties should expect. Mitchell Baker is just an "employee", despite her long years of service. She was even fired from Netscape during a round of layoffs, and served as a mere volunteer for years.
  - kybernetikos 6y ago
    This is true, but on the other hand the justification for this compensation is that she is able to get much more elsewhere, so asking her to take less is a sacrifice. If that is true, then maybe she should go elsewhere rather than make the sacrifice. If it isn't true then maybe she is overpaid at present. Just because accepting the sacrifice might not make sense for the current ceo and family doesn't mean that asking for it doesn't make sense for mozilla.

tinus_hn 6y ago

Sure, but it does mean due to her following her personal convictions her family has 2 million less to spend.

jstummbillig 6y ago

For every job, market rates are a thing. Yes, of course you will be able to fill just about any c-role at just about any rate. But, somehow, just as with any other job, the good people – those you will actually want to fill that role – want to be paid what the market tells them they are worth. And yes, there are other factors at play. Mitchell Baker brings it up: The kind of work you do matters not only to you but also to c-level people and will be priced into the pay. Who around here (who is also actually qualified enough, that mozilla would want them) would switch over, taking a 50% pay cut over their current pay, right now? Don't tell me you couldn't. Of course you could. Would it mean changing your life style? I am sure it would. But then again, that's a apparently cool to randomly ask of people who (I am assuming) earn a lot more than you do. There are two reasonable options: You either come to terms with reality, or you change reality. The later means, in this particular case, enticing someone qualified (which includes a) being capable b) willing and c) in a social position to actually "apply" for the job) and to do it for less. Good luck.

pantalaimon 6y ago
> Yes, of course you will be able to fill just about any c-role at just about any rate. But, somehow, just as with any other job, the good people – those you will actually want to fill that role – want to be paid what the market tells them they are worth. How do you measure how good a CEO is? Is having to let go 25% of your staff, axing the security team and stopping new developments indicative of good performance?
- jstummbillig 6y ago
  In isolation, no. In context of mozillas goals, challenges that arise when leading a company, and limited influence on the movement of the world, maybe. I doubt that either of us is close enough to the ground to realistically be a judge of that.
- dutchmartin 6y ago
  Maybe that’s why c level employees should be compensated on reaching certain targets, rather than getting at least a million a year. Because, if you are the captain of a schip, you should drown with it if it capsized.