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... And getting caught flat-footed against Microsoft (and Adobe, but but not as loudly) in the precise field Alphabet is supposedly the insurmountable leader.
by passwordoops 3y ago
... And getting caught flat-footed against Microsoft (and Adobe, but but not as loudly) in the precise field Alphabet is supposedly the insurmountable leader.
Remind me again how big-co CEOs assume "all the risk"?
- capableweb 3y ago> Remind me again how big-co CEOs assume "all the risk"? Does anyone seriously believe this? I see it all the time as a "comeback" against CEOs, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone arguing that they actually are the ones that assume all the risk.
- flangola7 3y agoIs this a serious question? Pichai will not experience hardship in any circumstance. His access to a roof, food, healthcare, quality of life, etc. are not in danger, now or in the future. The worst possible outcome for him still leaves many more zeroes in his personal finances than the vast majority of employees will ever see at any point in their life.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- darkerside 3y agoStraw man https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
- rvnx 3y agoZuckerberg took "full responsibility" in the last round of failures too. Though he isn't injecting his money back into the company. Full responsibility, but not too much.
- josephd79 3y agoHe also took millions why firing thousands of people.
- serial_dev 3y agoTalk is cheap. "Taking full responsibility" is also cheap, that's why CEOs often do it and fire 5-20% of their staff without blinking an eye.
- lupire 3y agoThe stock price is his full responsibility.
- jstummbillig 3y agoHow did you get from "taking all the risk" to "taking full responsibility"? Both mean entirely different things and you can easily have one without the other. i.e. a lead surgeon can and should take "full responsibility" for what happens in the OR, but they obviously neither can nor will (and I also don't think should) shoulder "all the risk" for what happens in the OR (or even most of it).
- tjpnz 3y ago>Remind me again how big-co CEOs assume "all the risk"? That's a fairytale almost as preposterous as the tooth fairy.
- adastra22 3y agoWhen I was a kid I put a tooth under my pillow and I woke up to find a dollar bill. That right there is more evidence for the tooth fairy than you’ll ever find in favor of CEOs assuming risk.
- echelon 3y ago> That right there is more evidence for the tooth fairy than you’ll ever find in favor of CEOs assuming risk. I quit my $400k/yr fintech job to be CEO of a company whose primary customers use our tool to make Trump and Biden video game memes on TikTok.
- polygamous_bat 3y agoThe original comment was talking about big-co CEOs. Your company doesn't seem like it would qualify yet :)
- supriyo-biswas 3y agoThis is true for small or medium sized private businesses; shareholder run, large corporations, not so much.
- 666satanhimself 3y ago[dead]
- AmericanChopper 3y agoReputational risk does affect the supply of viable CEO candidates (here we are deriding Pichai for perceived Google failures), but it’s far from the only factor. The main reason CEO total comp is so high in big companies is to align the CEO with the interests of shareholders. Something the layoffs with likely also aligned with.
- fallingknife 3y agoComp doesn't have to be high to be aligned. The reason it is so high is because of the massive risk and uncertainty of replacing a CEO. There are thousands of people at Google who would be perfectly fine CEOs and be willing to do it for small fraction of what Sundar Pichai costs, but how do you find them? Hiring is such an inexact process that there's a large chance that the guy you chose won't be one of those competent people. And a bad CEO at a company the size of Google can cost hundreds of billions of dollars. So this gives a competent CEO leverage to raise his comp to very high levels. When Pichai asks for $200 million, he knows that the board will give it to him because it just makes financial sense. They're not going to risk hundreds of billions of dollars on a potential bad CEO when they can pay their current CEO 0.1% of that to stay. Essentially CEOs are able to hold the board hostage.
- AmericanChopper 3y agoThis explanation you’ve cooked up is basically just a fan fiction. Any CEO who tried to “hold their board hostage” would be saying goodbye to their job, and likely their career, in short order. Pichai’s salary is $2 million. The rest of his compensation is incentives. Almost all of his compensation comes from incentive packages designed to align his interests with the interests of shareholders.
- CPLX 3y agoDoes it bother you at all this this statement is just factually incorrect? The stock is down about 50% give or take over the past year and a half.
- spaceman_2020 3y agoWhat's even the risk? If the CEO of Google gets fired, he just ends up as the CEO of another Fortune 500 company. If he can't even land that role, he can just go around pocketing $50k/event speaking fee. Of course, that's only if he doesn't want to degrade himself by taking on a VP-level role at another Fortune 500 company.
- rvnx 3y agoNo need to find a new job, 4% interest @ 225M USD = 9M USD yearly.
- DeusExMachina 3y agoOh, it's even better than that. This is just his compensation for last year. Add all previous years to it, plus stock he owns. Plus, the ability to get low interest loans which he can spend acquiring more assets.
- chrisbolt 3y ago> This is just his compensation for last year. $218M of it is a stock grant on a 3 year schedule, so no, it is not.
- nsett_ 3y agoHe's already a billionaire I think. 225M is just the fresh grant's value.
- onos 3y ago226M / 50k ~ 4000 events a year. Poor fellow couldn’t pull that off.
- hammyhavoc 3y agoBold to assume anybody needs $226m a year to live.
- practice9 3y agoRisk is unevenly distributed in corporations, and employees often have more to lose on a personal level
- frankfrankfrank 3y agoI get your point, but to be precise, it’s more that the impact is greater, because the very nature of being an employee is the willingness to trade supposed and perceived security and ease for the potential of gains.
- ihm 3y agoThat’s just a story told by employers. The reality is the very nature of being an employee in most cases is to be exploited and expendable, last in line and first on the chopping block.
- pharrington 3y agoThat makes employment sound like gambling!
- cscurmudgeon 3y agoWho is going to jail in the Theranos case?
- rco8786 3y ago> Remind me again how big-co CEOs assume "all the risk"? I have never once heard anyone make this claim.
- olalonde 3y agoI assume they are confusing CEOs with entrepreneurs and investors.
- danaris 3y agoIt's a claim repeated very frequently around here when people criticize exorbitant compensation packages for execs. For instance, see [0] below by fallingknife. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35665329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35665329
- sumeno 3y agoThat's not what that comment says, it says there are massive risks in REPLACING a CEO, it says nothing about risks the CEO is taking.
- rco8786 3y ago"the massive risk and uncertainty of replacing a CEO" This is not what we're talking about. This is about risk to the company, not risk to the CEO. "Essentially CEOs are able to hold the board hostage." Exactly. There is no risk to the CEO. They hold all the cards.
- chollida1 3y ago> Remind me again how big-co CEOs assume "all the risk"? Who specifically said they assume "all the risk" that we are refuting here?
- j7ake 3y agoTheir compensation doesn’t come from assuming more risk. They are essentially celebrities with a personal brand that corporations will hire to have the celebrity’s name as head the org. A good celebrity can bring fresh energy and new atmosphere to an organisation. It’s unclear whether the average CEO is worth their compensation, but what is clear is that bad leadership can tank an organisation to zero.
- jb1991 3y ago> And getting caught flat-footed against Microsoft (and Adobe, but but not as loudly) Where does Adobe fit into this, are they even competitors?
- jstummbillig 3y agoSorry, who are you quoting?
- belltaco 3y ago> Remind me again how big-co CEOs assume "all the risk"? Notice how everyone in this thread is calling Sundar out and not other people in the org who may be at fault too? It's the buck stops here thing.
- DeusExMachina 3y agoA few negative comments on an internet forum don't really affect his $226M compensation.
- belltaco 3y agoA few negative comments? https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2023/03/10/google-peacetime-ceo-sundar-pichai/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2023/03/10/google-...
- pwpw 3y agoWhen the CEO and CFO sign off on the financial statements, they assume an extraordinary amount of risk. If there is fraud occurring in the financial reporting of their company, they will be severely disciplined. I suggest reading up on Sarbanes-Oxley Section 302[0] and the Enron[1] and WorldCom[2] accounting scandals. Sarbanes-Oxley was issued as a response to the aforementioned scandals and lays out the bulk of the risk that a CEO and other executives take on. [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/7241 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/7241 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldCom_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldCom_scandal
- dopamean 3y agoAt Enron and Worldcom the CEOs were committing fraud. They brought that in themselves. It wasn't a "risk" they assumed. This is a bit of a ridiculous statement.
- pwpw 3y agoI’m not discussing the CEOs from those scandals. I’m discussing the ramifications of the scandals that have been passed onto present day CEOs. The GP asked what risk current CEOs assume. I linked them directly to Section 302 of Sarbanes-Oxley, which is the authoritative body on risk that a CEO assumes for a publicly-traded company in the US.
- citizen_friend 3y agoThey are still employees, not owners.
- stjohnswarts 3y agoI never thought I'd say this but I prefer Microsoft products to google these days and steer clients that way.