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Are you talking about the ~$800M in stock-based compensation described here [1]? Nearly all of that only vests if Robinhood stock hits price targets between $1
by jonas21 4y ago
Are you talking about the ~$800M in stock-based compensation described here [1]?
Nearly all of that only vests if Robinhood stock hits price targets between $120 and $300 per share. The remainder requires a price of $50.75 to be sustained for 60 days. Since none of these goals have been met, Vlad has not received any of it. And unless the company turns around dramatically - it's currently around $9/share - it's likely he never will.
[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1783879/000178387922000090/fscmix-robinhood2022proxy.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1783879/000178387922...
- BeetleB 4y agoExactly - all these articles about CEO compensation are misleading. Case in point: Intel's CEO's 2021 salary was reported as almost $180M. In reality, he got only about $10M. He hit literally none of the targets that would allow him to get the rest of the compensation (although in theory he has a few years to hit those targets).
- groby_b 4y agoTo be fair, if I could get paid $10M for not hitting any of my goals, I sure wouldn't complain.
- dylan604 4y agoTo be fair, I don't think the CEO is complaining either
- drunkpotato 4y agoHe doesn't even pay people to complain for him, they're so deluded they do it for free.
- kemitchell 4y agoIt’s case by case. I have seen some accurate CEO comp headlines. Some publications certainly bat better than others. As for Intel: $10m a year is still a lot of money. I have also heard that targets are occasionally hit. ;-D
- pc86 4y ago> $10m a year is still a lot of money In absolute terms, 100% yes it is. In "CEO of a major corporation most people in the world have heard about," it's basically nothing.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago> In "CEO of a major corporation most people in the world have heard about," it's basically nothing. Perhaps CEO pay is beyond the pale generally, and these are obscene expectations.
- pc86 4y agoCertainly a point worth making, and I might even be inclined to agree, but I think my point stands. Comparing against similarly noteworthy companies, Intel's CEO doesn't make all that much.
- bumby 4y agoNot scientific and maybe inaccurate, but a quick Google search showed the average Intel employee makes $100k. The shift in social norms where 100x the average employee (of a tech firm, which skews towards high salaries) is considered “basically nothing” is something worth talking about.
- sumedh 4y ago> is considered “basically nothing” is something worth talking about. Except if the CEO screws up the company goes bankrupt and people lose their jobs. Look at Nokia and RIM.
- cudgy 4y agoNokia and RIM got clocked by the iPhone. I don’t care who their CEO could have been, these companies were on the downward trend and headed for tough times.
- actually_a_dog 4y ago"Only $10M." Right. In a country where the median full time, year round worker makes $56k per year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...
- blargey 4y agoIn more hackernewsian terms, $10 million sitting in an investment account will outearn most software developers. Their salary has a higher salary than you.
- hosh 4y agoThat speaks to another point though -- the incentive to return shareholder value, often times to the detriment to the company, the employees, the customers, and sometimes to public safety.
- just_boost_it 4y agoWell, the shareholders provided the money that allows any of it to exist at all. If there's was nothing flowing back, there'd be nothing for institutional investors. IPOs would be worthless which means there'd be no exit for VCs. Everyone would love to just get money with no obligation to give anything back, but that's not the way the world works.
- hosh 4y agoThe idea that companies should maximize return on shareholder value has only been around since around the late 70s. It wasn’t always like that.
- cudgy 4y agoOnly 10M to fail to meet any benchmarks? Now that is a nice performance plan … for the CEO!
- alex_young 4y agoCompletely valid point. The same document points out that the CEO and CCO (both co-founders) each realized more than $168M in compensation in 2021. That's the number to talk about I think.
- peanutz454 4y agoWow! $168M/(3800 employee / 100*23 layoff) = $192,219 per layed off employee Not that I am suggesting he should pay the layed off employees from his personal kitty. Just trying to understand the numbers. Edit: OP said CEO and COO each. So $192K x 2 ~= $384,000.
- alain94040 4y agoYour math makes no sense. The fewer the employees laid off, the more the dollar per employee will be. What does that mean? If a company lays off only one employee, then all of the CEO's salary could have gone to one person?
- tedunangst 4y agoObviously they should have laid off more employees until the CEO salary per layoff drops below $1000.
- martin82 4y agoI think it just shows that the CEO earned enough to give every laid off employee a whole annual salary, so you could argue that the layoff could have been prevented for at least a year.
- curious_cat_163 4y agoExactly. Hate to go there on HN but there _is_ a moral side to this. What is the cost of making the kind of mistakes this guy did? And who should pay for them?
- 4y ago
- spullara 4y agoJournalists have no idea how corporate compensation works. At one point in Yahoo's history they reported Terry Semel's compensation as $300m. In actuality he got just his base salary that year as the options were all underwater. And they vest over 4 years. Further, they thought you multiply the stock price by the number of options to figure out how much they are worth. He would have never made that much under any circumstances.