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And how, exactly, would you be able to tell? Isn't the standard measure of CEO performance "did the stock price meet expectations for the quarter"? A measure w

And how, exactly, would you be able to tell? Isn't the standard measure of CEO performance "did the stock price meet expectations for the quarter"? A measure which has a myriad of different factors far outside the CEO's control affecting it—as well as a number of factors in the CEO's control that have very little to do with the actual health of the company. Furthermore, it's not at all uncommon for a very good leader to leave (dies, retires, steps down to go do something more fun, forced out by someone who wants to be their successor, whatever), and their successor to inherit a very healthy company with strong fundamentals and good people at various levels...and proceed to do bugger-all for several years and still be hailed as a great leader because the health of a company is very often a trailing indicator of leadership competence.

notch656a 4y ago
That's exactly my point. There's no way, I don't think, we can say if we redistributed the CEOs bonus that that $3,000 would still be there. We need some evidence to show the factors leading up to the availability of those $3,000 would still be intact with the bonus incentive removed. One could make the completely unfounded conjecture that perhaps everyone would make $3,000 LESS if the CEO didn't have a bonus incentive. Now that would not be supported by any facts, but then again neither is the suggestion you can just nix the CEO bonus incentive and expect the performance to support that $3000/ea extra money still being there. Remember wealth doesn't have to be zero-sum.