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This is good to see the great disconnect in the récent years between CEO compensation and workers compensation. Imagine that is is getting 10 millions as sign-

This is good to see the great disconnect in the récent years between CEO compensation and workers compensation. Imagine that is is getting 10 millions as sign-in bonus, just because he joins. When it easily represent a thousand years of work of a Barista that is the one really working hard every day to bring the cash in. Sure, the CEO work value is important, but not that multiple thousand years of employees. I like to translate such a CEO compensation into the number of products that you have to sell every year just to cover for the pay of this single person. Here if we think something like 5 to 15 millions of dollars per year, and a Starbucks drink is probably sold around 7 dollars: With that, employees have to sell around 710 000 to 2 142 000 drinks per year just to pay a standard year of this guy. My brain has hard time comprehending such a number.

paulcole 2y ago
> Sure, the CEO work value is important, but not that multiple thousand years of employees. Why not? Because you find it personally distasteful? What multiple is OK? If it’s not 1000 is it 999? If not 500 then 400? If not 100 then 25? Instead of downvoting, try answering…
- kkfx 2y ago
  [not OP] I suppose because any verticistic org can be sustainable for long. To have a resilient enterprise you need value spread across the entire pyramid, if not what happen when a CEO change mind or die suddenly? Beside that, why travel to be in an office, so doing the same thing he do at home? It's not efficient, it's stupid and stupid thing done for political reasons, like justify RTO because big corps need cities while humanity today need the opposite, could not led to anything than bad lands and dire scenarios. I take that as a proof we are essentially in a falling, failed society, where we lost the substantial propulsion force, industry and open research. Or this change quickly AND SUBSTANTIALLY or we will end up like any other failed empire before, in dire conditions.
  - paulcole 2y ago
    HN try not to argue against RTO challenge. Difficulty: impossible.
    - kkfx 2y ago
      Well, it's a current hot topic, since it's clearly imposed for reasons clearly against worker's interests and not direct interest of the companies they work for. So... It's natural to find many discussions who end up touching that topic... Indeed what do you think reading about someone who works from home most of the time, but took a jet to be a 1000km from home some day per week to show up in the office, something clearly not technically needed since office works is still at a desktop, not physical conference, not factory inspections or something like that. Hard to talk about something else.
- monkeyfun 2y ago
  Indeed, we should actually have a CEO take all of the surplus value. Or at least a continuously increasing amount. Not based on their performance or the value they can be measured to add, nor comparing against any sort of alternative structure that might be more efficient, but simply because they deserve it for their hard work ensuring the company is operational and ever-growing. Indeed, really it should be the case among all companies. And if employees dislike it, they should simply try to employ themselves and join in on the action; so often are people simply lazy whiners who should go make their own profitable business before rent's due. Actually, in retrospect, the CEOs should probably leave some surplus for the landlords to share -- without their herculean work, how would so many have a home to live in?
  - paulcole 2y ago
    Huh?
saaaaaam 2y ago
Starbucks has 38000 branches globally and around 18000 in the USA. Apparently the average store sells around 500 drinks a day. That’s 9 million drinks per day just in the USA. 19 million globally. So it’s the first couple of hours, on one single day, of the combined US stores. Not arguing either way about the comp this guy is getting - but like you say, the numbers are mind boggling when you begin to look at them!
- ffsm8 2y ago
  Maybe that's the source of the real issue... But that'd be hard to fix - at least across industries. For Starbucks it'd be easy (i.e. limiting the number of branches or similar via legislation) - but it'd be pretty much impossible for online companies selling digital goods or similar
  - cr125rider 2y ago
    Wait, why are we trying to limit the number of Starbucks?
    - abhay37 2y ago
      More like limiting the obvious catastrophic effects of wealth (aka power) disparity. People here seem to align on its existence being a moral hazard. Hard to argue against when the poor are still getting their water supply poisoned in developed countries.
kcplate 2y ago
My reaction to this whole controversy is “meh”. I am not sure why this story has the traction it does. It’s literally a global brand that has become synonymous with overpriced coffee and does nearly $25B a year in profit. Does anyone really believe that there aren’t CEO perks like this associated with an organization this size? I have worked for regional orgs making a fraction of that revenue where the CEO had a corporate jet.
- BadHumans 2y ago
  Starbucks is forcing people to return to office while their new CEO can reside in California and commute by private jet. That is the controversy in a nutshell.
  - nunez 2y ago
    And that's completely warranted. Not only does the CEO get the privilege of choosing whether he wants to relo to Seattle (with a chartered jet for transportation, no less), but Starbucks is also willing to expense up to three months of temporary residence while he's in Seattle until he finds "permanent secondary housing", at which point Starbucks will expense relocation costs. The average worker that moved to Boise during COVID? RTO, on your dime. The offer letter also allows the CEO to use the jet for personal travel, up to $250k/year (which is negotiable). Keep in mind that any travel he does while he's with vendors, suppliers, corp customers, etc counts as business travel that hits various corporate budgets and DOES NOT count towards this limit. So if he's into golf and wants to fly himself and his friends to Augusta or something, that's covered by Starbucks (and can also be considered a business expense depending on who's with him; see the previous sentence). Meanwhile, an employee (that isn't in Sales) who wants to fly Economy to a conference FOR WORK within the continental US has to charge the entire thing against their training budget (usually less than $3000) and, in some cases, provide evidence that they were there. And people on here wonder why founders, by and large, don't make startups for the love of it anymore. I agree with the internet here; this is bullshit.
  - kcplate 2y ago
    That argument might get SV crowd all riled up, but the bulk of Starbucks employees were and are not WFH. Pretty sure the average Starbucks barista, shop worker, coffee roaster, factory floor worker, delivery driver, etc.. never left “the office”. So some PMs, SWEs, HR workers, and accounting folks are butt hurt? They can quit and find remote work for another company.
layer8 2y ago
Compensation isn’t determined by worth, it’s determined by competition in the job market. The question to ask is why the job market has such a limited supply of semi-competent CEO candidates that it commands that level of compensation.
- ta988 2y ago
  Because it sets arbitrary rules that are in no way linked to competences. It is mostly about maintaining a specific kind of CEO that makes investors and boards comfortable. So perpetuating bias and uniformity more than performance.
- rsync 2y ago
  Semi-competent? It is my understanding that this is the guy who Introduced Taco Bell tacos with a Doritos shell… … which is pure, unalloyed genius.
  - cr125rider 2y ago
    “Collect all 2” My god I want to kiss their marketing team.

paulcole 2y ago

> Sure, the CEO work value is important, but not that multiple thousand years of employees. Why not? Because you find it personally distasteful? What multiple is OK? If it’s not 1000 is it 999? If not 500 then 400? If not 100 then 25? Instead of downvoting, try answering…

kkfx 2y ago
[not OP] I suppose because any verticistic org can be sustainable for long. To have a resilient enterprise you need value spread across the entire pyramid, if not what happen when a CEO change mind or die suddenly? Beside that, why travel to be in an office, so doing the same thing he do at home? It's not efficient, it's stupid and stupid thing done for political reasons, like justify RTO because big corps need cities while humanity today need the opposite, could not led to anything than bad lands and dire scenarios. I take that as a proof we are essentially in a falling, failed society, where we lost the substantial propulsion force, industry and open research. Or this change quickly AND SUBSTANTIALLY or we will end up like any other failed empire before, in dire conditions.
- paulcole 2y ago
  HN try not to argue against RTO challenge. Difficulty: impossible.
  - kkfx 2y ago
    Well, it's a current hot topic, since it's clearly imposed for reasons clearly against worker's interests and not direct interest of the companies they work for. So... It's natural to find many discussions who end up touching that topic... Indeed what do you think reading about someone who works from home most of the time, but took a jet to be a 1000km from home some day per week to show up in the office, something clearly not technically needed since office works is still at a desktop, not physical conference, not factory inspections or something like that. Hard to talk about something else.
monkeyfun 2y ago
Indeed, we should actually have a CEO take all of the surplus value. Or at least a continuously increasing amount. Not based on their performance or the value they can be measured to add, nor comparing against any sort of alternative structure that might be more efficient, but simply because they deserve it for their hard work ensuring the company is operational and ever-growing. Indeed, really it should be the case among all companies. And if employees dislike it, they should simply try to employ themselves and join in on the action; so often are people simply lazy whiners who should go make their own profitable business before rent's due. Actually, in retrospect, the CEOs should probably leave some surplus for the landlords to share -- without their herculean work, how would so many have a home to live in?
- paulcole 2y ago
  Huh?

saaaaaam 2y ago

Starbucks has 38000 branches globally and around 18000 in the USA. Apparently the average store sells around 500 drinks a day. That’s 9 million drinks per day just in the USA. 19 million globally. So it’s the first couple of hours, on one single day, of the combined US stores. Not arguing either way about the comp this guy is getting - but like you say, the numbers are mind boggling when you begin to look at them!

ffsm8 2y ago
Maybe that's the source of the real issue... But that'd be hard to fix - at least across industries. For Starbucks it'd be easy (i.e. limiting the number of branches or similar via legislation) - but it'd be pretty much impossible for online companies selling digital goods or similar
- cr125rider 2y ago
  Wait, why are we trying to limit the number of Starbucks?
  - abhay37 2y ago
    More like limiting the obvious catastrophic effects of wealth (aka power) disparity. People here seem to align on its existence being a moral hazard. Hard to argue against when the poor are still getting their water supply poisoned in developed countries.

kcplate 2y ago

My reaction to this whole controversy is “meh”. I am not sure why this story has the traction it does. It’s literally a global brand that has become synonymous with overpriced coffee and does nearly $25B a year in profit. Does anyone really believe that there aren’t CEO perks like this associated with an organization this size? I have worked for regional orgs making a fraction of that revenue where the CEO had a corporate jet.

BadHumans 2y ago
Starbucks is forcing people to return to office while their new CEO can reside in California and commute by private jet. That is the controversy in a nutshell.
- nunez 2y ago
  And that's completely warranted. Not only does the CEO get the privilege of choosing whether he wants to relo to Seattle (with a chartered jet for transportation, no less), but Starbucks is also willing to expense up to three months of temporary residence while he's in Seattle until he finds "permanent secondary housing", at which point Starbucks will expense relocation costs. The average worker that moved to Boise during COVID? RTO, on your dime. The offer letter also allows the CEO to use the jet for personal travel, up to $250k/year (which is negotiable). Keep in mind that any travel he does while he's with vendors, suppliers, corp customers, etc counts as business travel that hits various corporate budgets and DOES NOT count towards this limit. So if he's into golf and wants to fly himself and his friends to Augusta or something, that's covered by Starbucks (and can also be considered a business expense depending on who's with him; see the previous sentence). Meanwhile, an employee (that isn't in Sales) who wants to fly Economy to a conference FOR WORK within the continental US has to charge the entire thing against their training budget (usually less than $3000) and, in some cases, provide evidence that they were there. And people on here wonder why founders, by and large, don't make startups for the love of it anymore. I agree with the internet here; this is bullshit.
- kcplate 2y ago
  That argument might get SV crowd all riled up, but the bulk of Starbucks employees were and are not WFH. Pretty sure the average Starbucks barista, shop worker, coffee roaster, factory floor worker, delivery driver, etc.. never left “the office”. So some PMs, SWEs, HR workers, and accounting folks are butt hurt? They can quit and find remote work for another company.

layer8 2y ago

Compensation isn’t determined by worth, it’s determined by competition in the job market. The question to ask is why the job market has such a limited supply of semi-competent CEO candidates that it commands that level of compensation.

ta988 2y ago
Because it sets arbitrary rules that are in no way linked to competences. It is mostly about maintaining a specific kind of CEO that makes investors and boards comfortable. So perpetuating bias and uniformity more than performance.
rsync 2y ago
Semi-competent? It is my understanding that this is the guy who Introduced Taco Bell tacos with a Doritos shell… … which is pure, unalloyed genius.
- cr125rider 2y ago
  “Collect all 2” My god I want to kiss their marketing team.