I feel like it's a little disingenuous to list unexercised stock and option grants as part of the overall compensation, since these are directly related to the future performance of the company itself (as led by the listed CEO, presumably). I would have liked to see the option to differentiate between total compensation more granularly, including by exercised grants.<p>I understand that that "2.3 billion" number makes for shocking value and therefore a great headline, supporting the narrative that they're looking to construct, but the way the raw data is presented actively obfuscates readers from exploring the data and forming their own interpretations.<p>When I see a dataset with a 4 <i>million</i> percent increase YOY, I would probably classify that as an outlier, not as the representative value I report for the whole dataset.<p>Edit: That's not to say their narrative is wrong (that is, CEOs may absolutely be overpaid), just that the way they presented it feels misleading to me.
CEOs should be able to get paid how much ever the company/the board/the stock holders are ok with paying them. No limit.<p>BUT that pay should be linked to the pay of everyone else in the company: the average pay or the minimum pay or whatever have you.<p>I think the point gets lost in the fairness. It’s fair to pay them more for their hard work. But it’s not fair to pay the CEO enormous sums while the employees struggle.
If it's never been easier to be a CEO, perhaps the author should consider it. It's the easiest job title to legitimately acquire. You just need to pay a few hundred bucks to incorporate in Delaware, and boom, you're a CEO.
I'd like to see a little balance in this piece. Author includes no input from the CEOs and no evidence of the ease of the job. It's essentially a listing of the compensation of a variety of high-paid CEOs.<p>Moreover, the <i>median</i> CEO pay in the US is $160k [0]. Perhaps there's a little confirmation bias in this article.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Chief_Executive_Officer_(CEO)/Salary" rel="nofollow">https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Chief_Executive_Off...</a>
Before jumping to the conclusion that the author is hoping you jump to, question: is it possible that he, you, and I don’t have a full view of the rare personality traits and skills that are required to be an effective Fortune 50 CEO?<p>I assume most of us here are in favor for exchanging money for value (versus time contributed)? Correct? Otherwise, how is a $200k SW engineer’s salary justifiable compared to a $30k fast food worker’s? In the same 40 hour work week?<p>I do take issue with non-founding CEOs [sometimes] having no skin in the game. I saw this when I was at BlackBerry. Win or lose, the CEO that replaced the founders would win. BlackBerry lost, he didn’t. This seems like a misalignment of incentives, but that’s up to the company to address, not me, and hopefully not the government. If the company gets the incentives wrong, they lose, and hopefully we learn.<p>Back to the point: if a company has an impact on billions of dollars and millions of lives, I’d prefer their leader be paid well. But my preference is irrelevant here because a company can and should decide how to value that person’s role. In contrast, I certainly wouldn’t want a government policy (and it’s guaranteed slew of unintended consequences) regulating how much a chief executive is paid.<p>Being an effective CEO is anything but easy. And the combination of an effective CEO’s skills and experience are extraordinarily rare. It’s not a surprise that the market prices their value accordingly.
Once you get to a certain level of success in the business world, you can't fail. CEOs who run a business into the ground easily find work leading other companies. CEOs who commit crimes almost never get punished. There's a serious issue with "moral hazard" because they can't fail or be punished.
Why is CEO pay the business of anyone except the Board of Directors?<p>Why don’t we critique successful actors or athletes for their high pay? The cast of Friends made a million dollars per episode. And they didn’t even make decisions, they literally read lines and made facial expressions at appropriate moments. Certainly the editor and camera operators worked “harder.”