It's really sad how wildly distorted executive compensation has gotten. The best phrase I heard was "entrepreneurial reward for managerial duty", and I fear it's become all-too-common. My eyes popped out of my head recently when I saw that Coca-Cola (yes, that same drink company that's done just fine for over a hundred years and whose organic growth rate <i>might</i> be 1% if they're lucky) was trying to give management $13 BILLION over the next four years. It's insanity. And when it's not simple pay, it's severance packages that give Fuck-You money to people whose performance provably dreadful. Leo Apotheker made $25 million on his way out the door from HP, after vaporizing over $6 billion in buying a fraudulent company and doing virtually no due diligence. It's madness, pure madness. Executive comp is a bubble, these people aren't worth anything near this much, but I have no idea when it will pop.