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So it's likely that previous bonuses/raises were also based on 'old' stock prices. But since Amazon stock was (pretty much) always increasing, this means that t

So it's likely that previous bonuses/raises were also based on 'old' stock prices. But since Amazon stock was (pretty much) always increasing, this means that those bonuses were consistently lower than what they should've been. Of course it's only an issue now when the opposite is true, and is costing Amazon rather than the employees.

JKCalhoun 4y ago
Ha ha, back in the late 90's, Apple took away profit sharing as soon as there was a profit. Specifically, I should say, Steve Jobs took away profit sharing.
- arbitrage 4y ago
  It wasn't just Steve Jobs. It's never just one person. Many people enable punitive & regressive decisions like that.
  - effingwewt 4y ago
    This is what's great about being a CEO! Things go bad? Ship is too big to steer, the failure is on the whole company, the CEO didn't even know, they swear! Things go right? Obviously it was all the hard work of the CEO they definitely deserve millions in bonuses! It was Steve Jobs, so was the wage-fixing. They were all so stupid about it they literally got busted doing it. Doesn't matter what the company makes, only the C-Suite will reap the rewards. But hey, maybe some $ will trickle down to the people who make the money for the company...
    - keeganpoppen 4y ago
      yeah no one ever makes the argument that Steve Jobs doesn't deserve 100% of the credit for Apple's success
      - Someone 4y ago
        I’ll make that argument: Steve Jobs doesn't deserve 100% of the credit for Apple's success. I think that’s trivially true. AFAIK, it wasn’t him alone who put 100+ million iPhones in boxes every year, and without that, Apple’s success would have been smaller. He also didn’t do hardware design without help, and I’m fairly sure he didn’t write much of Apple’s software, etc. etc. Even if you think all others involved were replaceable, many of them still contributed.
    - foobarian 4y ago
      I for one am perfectly happy with the mid 6 figures that trickle down to us lowly ICEs...
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      > But hey, maybe some $ will trickle down to the people who make the money for the company... It doesn't trickle down. Some (most) people agree to work for someone in exchange for money, rather than go off and be CEOs and have people work for them.
- pinewurst 4y ago
  Don’t forget Steve Jobs’ wage fixing too.
jonhohle 4y ago
When I was last there (albeit 6 years ago), following reviews managers determined what your new “total yearly comp” would be. Base pay was pretty low compared to industry, but RSUs were used to make up the difference based on the price on a certain date with a 4-year vesting period, distributed quarterly (16 distributions). For example, if your total comp required 20k extra per year and the stock price was $100, you’d be granted 800 shares. If the stock price had fallen to $80, you’d be granted 1,000. We always wanted the stock price to have a temporary low around review season because that would benefit our RSU grant. Any dollar amount assigned to the grant on the given review date was understood to be based on the current stock price, subject to change, and as a way to communicate total comp. If the stock dropped over the course of the year, there was occasionally corrections, either in base pay or RSUs. This was also complicated by the fact that you could have up to four years of grants stacked on top of one another, all vesting on the same schedule. Obviously, that was taken into total comp calculations, so if you got lucky with a low price and big grant in the past four years, your yearly grant might end up low as a result.
- thakoppno 4y ago
  > We always wanted the stock price to have a temporary low around review season because that would benefit our RSU grant. What a perverse incentive. I would love to know if any high-profile outages are clustered around those dates.
  - cj 4y ago
    Probably not, since even high profile outages historically haven't had much of an effect on stock price.
  - __derek__ 4y ago
    It's a trailing 30-day window. That would be a potentially company-destroying outage.
- plasticchris 4y ago
  > so if you got lucky with a low price and big grant in the past four years, your yearly grant might end up low as a result. Yep, luck is only for the capitalists, not for the plebes. Shouldn't it be the case that if a worker was part of a major turnaround they should reap the rewards? Instead this would just make sure they didn't really benefit. If this were sr mgmt they would claim the increase should justify _extra_ comp as they did such a good job to make the stock go up.

JKCalhoun 4y ago

Ha ha, back in the late 90's, Apple took away profit sharing as soon as there was a profit. Specifically, I should say, Steve Jobs took away profit sharing.

arbitrage 4y ago
It wasn't just Steve Jobs. It's never just one person. Many people enable punitive & regressive decisions like that.
- effingwewt 4y ago
  This is what's great about being a CEO! Things go bad? Ship is too big to steer, the failure is on the whole company, the CEO didn't even know, they swear! Things go right? Obviously it was all the hard work of the CEO they definitely deserve millions in bonuses! It was Steve Jobs, so was the wage-fixing. They were all so stupid about it they literally got busted doing it. Doesn't matter what the company makes, only the C-Suite will reap the rewards. But hey, maybe some $ will trickle down to the people who make the money for the company...
  - keeganpoppen 4y ago
    yeah no one ever makes the argument that Steve Jobs doesn't deserve 100% of the credit for Apple's success
    - Someone 4y ago
      I’ll make that argument: Steve Jobs doesn't deserve 100% of the credit for Apple's success. I think that’s trivially true. AFAIK, it wasn’t him alone who put 100+ million iPhones in boxes every year, and without that, Apple’s success would have been smaller. He also didn’t do hardware design without help, and I’m fairly sure he didn’t write much of Apple’s software, etc. etc. Even if you think all others involved were replaceable, many of them still contributed.
  - foobarian 4y ago
    I for one am perfectly happy with the mid 6 figures that trickle down to us lowly ICEs...
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    > But hey, maybe some $ will trickle down to the people who make the money for the company... It doesn't trickle down. Some (most) people agree to work for someone in exchange for money, rather than go off and be CEOs and have people work for them.
pinewurst 4y ago
Don’t forget Steve Jobs’ wage fixing too.

jonhohle 4y ago

When I was last there (albeit 6 years ago), following reviews managers determined what your new “total yearly comp” would be. Base pay was pretty low compared to industry, but RSUs were used to make up the difference based on the price on a certain date with a 4-year vesting period, distributed quarterly (16 distributions). For example, if your total comp required 20k extra per year and the stock price was $100, you’d be granted 800 shares. If the stock price had fallen to $80, you’d be granted 1,000. We always wanted the stock price to have a temporary low around review season because that would benefit our RSU grant. Any dollar amount assigned to the grant on the given review date was understood to be based on the current stock price, subject to change, and as a way to communicate total comp. If the stock dropped over the course of the year, there was occasionally corrections, either in base pay or RSUs. This was also complicated by the fact that you could have up to four years of grants stacked on top of one another, all vesting on the same schedule. Obviously, that was taken into total comp calculations, so if you got lucky with a low price and big grant in the past four years, your yearly grant might end up low as a result.

thakoppno 4y ago
> We always wanted the stock price to have a temporary low around review season because that would benefit our RSU grant. What a perverse incentive. I would love to know if any high-profile outages are clustered around those dates.
- cj 4y ago
  Probably not, since even high profile outages historically haven't had much of an effect on stock price.
- __derek__ 4y ago
  It's a trailing 30-day window. That would be a potentially company-destroying outage.
plasticchris 4y ago
> so if you got lucky with a low price and big grant in the past four years, your yearly grant might end up low as a result. Yep, luck is only for the capitalists, not for the plebes. Shouldn't it be the case that if a worker was part of a major turnaround they should reap the rewards? Instead this would just make sure they didn't really benefit. If this were sr mgmt they would claim the increase should justify _extra_ comp as they did such a good job to make the stock go up.