4 ms·

Yes, but the top brass are racking in tens of millions.

rewmie 3y ago
> Yes, but the top brass are racking in tens of millions. I agree that leadership should lead by example. However, tens of millions represent a small fraction of the > 100 million hemorrhaging that the company is reporting.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  10% is not a small fraction
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Most of it is shares, not cash. Shares aren't comparable to cash here at all.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  That tens of millions is supposed to be each, isn't it? It describes the one individual getting the most, but I don't know how it falls down through the hierarchy.
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  If you look at the total compensation of top 5 earners at Unity, it's damn close to 100 million. https://www1.salary.com/Unity-Software-Inc-Executive-Salaries.html https://www1.salary.com/Unity-Software-Inc-Executive-Salarie... The CMO alone makes 32 million? Absolutely wild.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    CMO is the best paid by far, and while it's still a big number, it's only $500k in salary - about the same as a senior Netflix engineer. All the rest is equity, which is only valuable if anyone wants to buy it.
    - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
      > CMO is the best paid by far, and while it's still a big number, it's only $500k in salary - about the same as a senior Netflix engineer. But is the CMO adding that value to the company? Based on their most recent big project being the licensing guffaw that has them hemorrhaging users, I would kind of say... no?
      - signatoremo 3y ago
        How much value do you think you add to your employer? Your value is based on how the market values you, not a specific dollar amount that your lines of code generate (if you are a developer). Similarly the CMO’s compensation is based on how the market values that job. Does the person make more than CMOs of similar companies? If you suck at coding, you’d likely have a hard time landing a new job. If the Unity’s CMO sucks at doing their job, it’d be a stain in their resume, although it’s likely that they can still have a lucrative job in the future (Unfortunately that’s the reality)
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        > But is the CMO adding that value to the company? Based on their most recent big project being the licensing guffaw that has them hemorrhaging users, I would kind of say... no? Maybe, but that's a totally different topic.
    - bluefirebrand 3y ago
      I dunno kinda seems like even if they sold the equity at a fraction of the value they could still easily double that salary or more.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        Yes, but that isn't money that can be used to rescue the company. It only materialises if people think the shares are worth buying. If a company is selling its own shares to prop up operational costs, those shares will be worth very little very quickly.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - jcranmer 3y ago
    If my understanding of finances is correct, the total compensation numbers you're citing are almost meaningless from a cash flow perspective. Most of the compensation is in stock, and issuing new stock as compensation doesn't really cost the company anything. Buying back the issued stock is where the stock compensation would have a negative impact on cash flow.
    - guru4consulting 3y ago
      I guess it DOES cost company something.. goes directly to their profit/lost statement (of course if they are sincere to follow GAAP standards). And I do not understand the rationale when people say salary alone matters and stock compensation does not matter until the gains are realized. It still is an asset even if the values fluctuate. I will be very happy to take the risk of having no salary and millions of stocks as compensation, especially for a well established market leader like Unity.
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        And then you look at your balance when you go to sell and realize it is not worth much. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/U/unity-software/market-cap https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/U/unity-software/m... -28% annual return since going public. https://dqydj.com/stock-return-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/stock-return-calculator/ A relatively riskless investment in sp500 would have earned 11%+ per year since 2019. https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- rqtwteye 3y ago
  "However, tens of millions represent a small fraction of the > 100 million hemorrhaging that the company is reporting" So it's not a big deal if I embezzle a few million dollars. It's just a very small fraction of the overall loss of the company so there is no need to look at that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
niceice 3y ago
Their salaries are in the $250k to $500k range. The rest is stock. Unrealized gains that may or may not be realized in the market.
- pavlov 3y ago
  Stock-based compensation is counted as an expense in the accounting rules used by public companies (GAAP). So if they give $100M in stock awards, that’s a negative $100M on the company’s profit & loss statement, even though it’s not actually paid in cash by the company. For that reason many tech companies also report non-GAAP numbers where the profit looks nicer because they can leave out stock-based compensation (and anything else they feel like they can get away with).
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Compensation is compensation. Stock has value even if that value is constantly changing. If they disagree, I'd happily take their worthless millions of Unity stock off their hands for them. The point is how does an executive team who together makes on the order of $100M/yr justify its own compensation if the company is losing on the order of $100M/yr?
  - vondur 3y ago
    If they keep screwing up the company, that stock may not be worth much.
  - tensor 3y ago
    Business 101 is that all funded companies aim to lose money in order to grow. As long as the growth rate is sufficiently high to justify the losses, this is considered good performance. However, if that ratio goes the wrong way, then companies need to make internal adjustments to bring it back in line. That could be new or different pricing strategies, but it also usually involves some efficiency improvements and cost cutting. This is why you have scenarios like this where the company is yes overall losing money each year (as intended), making more revenue than last year (good), and still cutting jobs (because they are still not at the right ratio of revenue growth to losses). So the executives could be doing a completely fine job bringing the company back to the right path. With only trivial high level information like we have we can't tell. To really know if they are doing well or not you'd need to dive into the finances.

> Yes, but the top brass are racking in tens of millions. I agree that leadership should lead by example. However, tens of millions represent a small fraction of the > 100 million hemorrhaging that the company is reporting.

edgyquant 3y ago
10% is not a small fraction
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  Most of it is shares, not cash. Shares aren't comparable to cash here at all.
marcosdumay 3y ago
That tens of millions is supposed to be each, isn't it? It describes the one individual getting the most, but I don't know how it falls down through the hierarchy.
bluefirebrand 3y ago
If you look at the total compensation of top 5 earners at Unity, it's damn close to 100 million. https://www1.salary.com/Unity-Software-Inc-Executive-Salaries.html https://www1.salary.com/Unity-Software-Inc-Executive-Salarie... The CMO alone makes 32 million? Absolutely wild.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  CMO is the best paid by far, and while it's still a big number, it's only $500k in salary - about the same as a senior Netflix engineer. All the rest is equity, which is only valuable if anyone wants to buy it.
  - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
    > CMO is the best paid by far, and while it's still a big number, it's only $500k in salary - about the same as a senior Netflix engineer. But is the CMO adding that value to the company? Based on their most recent big project being the licensing guffaw that has them hemorrhaging users, I would kind of say... no?
    - signatoremo 3y ago
      How much value do you think you add to your employer? Your value is based on how the market values you, not a specific dollar amount that your lines of code generate (if you are a developer). Similarly the CMO’s compensation is based on how the market values that job. Does the person make more than CMOs of similar companies? If you suck at coding, you’d likely have a hard time landing a new job. If the Unity’s CMO sucks at doing their job, it’d be a stain in their resume, although it’s likely that they can still have a lucrative job in the future (Unfortunately that’s the reality)
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      > But is the CMO adding that value to the company? Based on their most recent big project being the licensing guffaw that has them hemorrhaging users, I would kind of say... no? Maybe, but that's a totally different topic.
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago
    I dunno kinda seems like even if they sold the equity at a fraction of the value they could still easily double that salary or more.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      Yes, but that isn't money that can be used to rescue the company. It only materialises if people think the shares are worth buying. If a company is selling its own shares to prop up operational costs, those shares will be worth very little very quickly.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jcranmer 3y ago
  If my understanding of finances is correct, the total compensation numbers you're citing are almost meaningless from a cash flow perspective. Most of the compensation is in stock, and issuing new stock as compensation doesn't really cost the company anything. Buying back the issued stock is where the stock compensation would have a negative impact on cash flow.
  - guru4consulting 3y ago
    I guess it DOES cost company something.. goes directly to their profit/lost statement (of course if they are sincere to follow GAAP standards). And I do not understand the rationale when people say salary alone matters and stock compensation does not matter until the gains are realized. It still is an asset even if the values fluctuate. I will be very happy to take the risk of having no salary and millions of stocks as compensation, especially for a well established market leader like Unity.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      And then you look at your balance when you go to sell and realize it is not worth much. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/U/unity-software/market-cap https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/U/unity-software/m... -28% annual return since going public. https://dqydj.com/stock-return-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/stock-return-calculator/ A relatively riskless investment in sp500 would have earned 11%+ per year since 2019. https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rqtwteye 3y ago
"However, tens of millions represent a small fraction of the > 100 million hemorrhaging that the company is reporting" So it's not a big deal if I embezzle a few million dollars. It's just a very small fraction of the overall loss of the company so there is no need to look at that.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

niceice 3y ago

Their salaries are in the $250k to $500k range. The rest is stock. Unrealized gains that may or may not be realized in the market.

pavlov 3y ago
Stock-based compensation is counted as an expense in the accounting rules used by public companies (GAAP). So if they give $100M in stock awards, that’s a negative $100M on the company’s profit & loss statement, even though it’s not actually paid in cash by the company. For that reason many tech companies also report non-GAAP numbers where the profit looks nicer because they can leave out stock-based compensation (and anything else they feel like they can get away with).
ryandrake 3y ago
Compensation is compensation. Stock has value even if that value is constantly changing. If they disagree, I'd happily take their worthless millions of Unity stock off their hands for them. The point is how does an executive team who together makes on the order of $100M/yr justify its own compensation if the company is losing on the order of $100M/yr?
- vondur 3y ago
  If they keep screwing up the company, that stock may not be worth much.
- tensor 3y ago
  Business 101 is that all funded companies aim to lose money in order to grow. As long as the growth rate is sufficiently high to justify the losses, this is considered good performance. However, if that ratio goes the wrong way, then companies need to make internal adjustments to bring it back in line. That could be new or different pricing strategies, but it also usually involves some efficiency improvements and cost cutting. This is why you have scenarios like this where the company is yes overall losing money each year (as intended), making more revenue than last year (good), and still cutting jobs (because they are still not at the right ratio of revenue growth to losses). So the executives could be doing a completely fine job bringing the company back to the right path. With only trivial high level information like we have we can't tell. To really know if they are doing well or not you'd need to dive into the finances.