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> If you're in charge of managing 121k people - 10x the average salary seems like a minimum. 100x seems in the realm of reasonable. Except, that’s not a CEO’s

> If you're in charge of managing 121k people - 10x the average salary seems like a minimum. 100x seems in the realm of reasonable. Except, that’s not a CEO’s job. Even remotely. At best they “manage” a few department heads who each manage a few middle managers who each manage a few direct managers who then manage the workforce. Even then, that’s a misrepresentation however. They are in charge of managing and directing overall company strategy in the interests of the board. The COO (and, sometimes, the CTO; in tech firms) is usually (indirectly) in charge of managing people. I think it’s a valid point that they bring large value to a corporation, but it would be very difficult to quantify that value to be anywhere near 100x any other non-Csuite employee.

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
It's more difficult to justify to shareholders paying less, tbh. The risks of a bad CEO are enormous.
- deaddodo 4y ago
  And yet, CEOs for decades (the 50s-80s) did just fine at a fraction of wealth disparity compared to today [1]. In fact, in just the last three years; the overall disparity has increased 31% despite corporations failing to properly manage the pandemic or their workforces. 1 - https://www.forbes.com/sites/annefield/2022/05/23/ceo-worker-pay-gap-widens-and-employees-arent-happy-about-it/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/annefield/2022/05/23/ceo-worker...
  - BeetleB 4y ago
    > And yet, CEOs for decades (the 50s-80s) did just fine at a fraction of wealth disparity compared to today [1]. And yet, SW professionals did just fine for decades when making anywhere from a quarter to a third of today's FAANG salaries (inflation adjusted).
    - bumby 4y ago
      It’s a reasonable point. But I think the distinction is SW wasn’t creating the economic value it does now. Similar to why firmware jobs don’t pay FAANG type salaries, the scale of economic impact isn’t there. (Not to be confused with societal impact). So the question becomes, are CEOs pay commensurate with their added value? Put differently, is the rise in production mainly attributable to the CEO (as wages were largely stagnant prior to 2020, yet CEO wages increased rather dramatically.) Are they adding more value now than they did before and, if so, can we actually measure it?
    - deaddodo 4y ago
      SWE (and many professional/“white color”) salaries have been stagnant for a decade and a half. In fact, the overall average has been on the decline. Try again.
      - pc86 4y ago
        You can make your point (even a bad one, like this) without being snide. Do you have a source supporting your comment that SWE comp in 2005 was the same as it is today?
        deaddodo 4y ago
        Considering I’m the only one that has sourced anything in this thread and that the response I was responding to made an easily disproven claim in such a snide/sarcastic manner, it’s hard not to respond in kind. But sure, from a super simple query on any search engine: https://insights.dice.com/2018/02/09/tech-pro-jobs-pay-2018/ https://insights.dice.com/2018/02/09/tech-pro-jobs-pay-2018/ Feel free to gate your query to anytime between 2003ish to now, the results are all the same with a few exceptions (MLE and DeFi jobs, for instance): stagnant or decreasing.
        cudgy 4y ago
        SWE’s straight out of school made 90-100k in the late 90’s. Isn’t that what they make now?
  - onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
    Corporate profits are up way more than 31% in that time. So the impact to shareholders is larger.
    - bumby 4y ago
      Relevant to this thread, Robinhood numbers are way down yet the CEO still made significant salary by historical comparison. To me, that points more to a change in social norms than in productivity. But you bring up an interesting point. The CEO may be incentivized to promote wealth disparity. If they are measured by profitability only, without regard to the larger systemic effects, it incentivizes them to take a myopic view. This could mean implementing policies that help hit short term targets without regard to long term health, suppressing wages, etc. To a certain extent, whichever side we’re on is really just a narrative we tell ourselves since there doesn’t seem to be conclusive data about CEO impact.
- bumby 4y ago
  The research is a bit mixed on whether a CEO of a large corporation (S&P 500 size) really matters so I’m not sure the risk statement can be said with conviction.

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago

It's more difficult to justify to shareholders paying less, tbh. The risks of a bad CEO are enormous.

deaddodo 4y ago
And yet, CEOs for decades (the 50s-80s) did just fine at a fraction of wealth disparity compared to today [1]. In fact, in just the last three years; the overall disparity has increased 31% despite corporations failing to properly manage the pandemic or their workforces. 1 - https://www.forbes.com/sites/annefield/2022/05/23/ceo-worker-pay-gap-widens-and-employees-arent-happy-about-it/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/annefield/2022/05/23/ceo-worker...
- BeetleB 4y ago
  > And yet, CEOs for decades (the 50s-80s) did just fine at a fraction of wealth disparity compared to today [1]. And yet, SW professionals did just fine for decades when making anywhere from a quarter to a third of today's FAANG salaries (inflation adjusted).
  - bumby 4y ago
    It’s a reasonable point. But I think the distinction is SW wasn’t creating the economic value it does now. Similar to why firmware jobs don’t pay FAANG type salaries, the scale of economic impact isn’t there. (Not to be confused with societal impact). So the question becomes, are CEOs pay commensurate with their added value? Put differently, is the rise in production mainly attributable to the CEO (as wages were largely stagnant prior to 2020, yet CEO wages increased rather dramatically.) Are they adding more value now than they did before and, if so, can we actually measure it?
  - deaddodo 4y ago
    SWE (and many professional/“white color”) salaries have been stagnant for a decade and a half. In fact, the overall average has been on the decline. Try again.
    - pc86 4y ago
      You can make your point (even a bad one, like this) without being snide. Do you have a source supporting your comment that SWE comp in 2005 was the same as it is today?
      - deaddodo 4y ago
        Considering I’m the only one that has sourced anything in this thread and that the response I was responding to made an easily disproven claim in such a snide/sarcastic manner, it’s hard not to respond in kind. But sure, from a super simple query on any search engine: https://insights.dice.com/2018/02/09/tech-pro-jobs-pay-2018/ https://insights.dice.com/2018/02/09/tech-pro-jobs-pay-2018/ Feel free to gate your query to anytime between 2003ish to now, the results are all the same with a few exceptions (MLE and DeFi jobs, for instance): stagnant or decreasing.
      - cudgy 4y ago
        SWE’s straight out of school made 90-100k in the late 90’s. Isn’t that what they make now?
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  Corporate profits are up way more than 31% in that time. So the impact to shareholders is larger.
  - bumby 4y ago
    Relevant to this thread, Robinhood numbers are way down yet the CEO still made significant salary by historical comparison. To me, that points more to a change in social norms than in productivity. But you bring up an interesting point. The CEO may be incentivized to promote wealth disparity. If they are measured by profitability only, without regard to the larger systemic effects, it incentivizes them to take a myopic view. This could mean implementing policies that help hit short term targets without regard to long term health, suppressing wages, etc. To a certain extent, whichever side we’re on is really just a narrative we tell ourselves since there doesn’t seem to be conclusive data about CEO impact.
bumby 4y ago
The research is a bit mixed on whether a CEO of a large corporation (S&P 500 size) really matters so I’m not sure the risk statement can be said with conviction.