San Francisco will put ‘CEO tax’ on the ballot this November • Hacker News Board

Re: San Francisco will put ‘CEO tax’ on the ballot this November

#31

Post by gorgoiler » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 10:08 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #28

tluyben2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well some CEO's maybe should; I don't know how it is to run companies with 50000+ employees; as a long term CTO myself, I look to work with CEO's who are not greedy and spread the wealth with the employees and who are not just out there to buy jets and ferrari's. (Actually, I have a natural aversion to people who buy sportscars with their wealth as I find it rancid and decadent in this day-and-age, but that's another…

> 200x is over the top I guess; I cannot see how you bring that much more value than your employees. Steve Jobs took over Apple when it was 90 days from bankruptcy and turned it into the most valuable company in the world. Apple had a series of CEOs before Jobs that didn't. Essentially, the CEO decides which hill to climb. The right hill, the company makes $$$. The wrong hill, the company languishes. That's worth a h…

Is it the team captain which wins the football match?

Re: San Francisco will put ‘CEO tax’ on the ballot this November

#32

Post by hobofan » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 10:09 AM UTC

fsh wrote: post #29

WalterBright wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 200x is over the top I guess; I cannot see how you bring that much more value than your employees. Steve Jobs took over Apple when it was 90 days from bankruptcy and turned it into the most valuable company in the world. Apple had a series of CEOs before Jobs that didn't. Essentially, the CEO decides which hill to climb. The right hill, the company makes $$$. The wrong hill, the company languishes. That's worth a h…

That's just cherry-picking one particular case with a positive outcome. The last few Boeing CEOs were also paid tens of millions per year and ended up running the company (and two planes) into the ground.

> The wrong hill, the company languishes

Re: San Francisco will put ‘CEO tax’ on the ballot this November

#33

Post by soulofmischief » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 10:10 AM UTC

gorgoiler wrote: post #31

WalterBright wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 200x is over the top I guess; I cannot see how you bring that much more value than your employees. Steve Jobs took over Apple when it was 90 days from bankruptcy and turned it into the most valuable company in the world. Apple had a series of CEOs before Jobs that didn't. Essentially, the CEO decides which hill to climb. The right hill, the company makes $$$. The wrong hill, the company languishes. That's worth a h…

Is it the team captain which wins the football match?

Loaded question. Without the team captain, the team loses.

Re: San Francisco will put ‘CEO tax’ on the ballot this November

#34

Post by nikanj » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 10:10 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #2

So if a company pays its CEO less, will they get a tax credit? Unlikely. With coronavirus, why does a company need to have a San Francisco HQ? Simply move the headquarters to Las Vegas, Reno, or Texas, and hire remote. To my knowledge, there aren’t too many hardware companies in San Francisco; they are mostly companies they have employees that sit at computers typing stuff or calling people. Other than cachet, why wo…

The location of the HQ on paper has nothing to do with where the office actually is, anyway. So many large corporations are registered in Delaware, or in a tax haven.

Re: San Francisco will put ‘CEO tax’ on the ballot this November

#35

Post by tluyben2 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 10:10 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #28

tluyben2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well some CEO's maybe should; I don't know how it is to run companies with 50000+ employees; as a long term CTO myself, I look to work with CEO's who are not greedy and spread the wealth with the employees and who are not just out there to buy jets and ferrari's. (Actually, I have a natural aversion to people who buy sportscars with their wealth as I find it rancid and decadent in this day-and-age, but that's another…

> 200x is over the top I guess; I cannot see how you bring that much more value than your employees. Steve Jobs took over Apple when it was 90 days from bankruptcy and turned it into the most valuable company in the world. Apple had a series of CEOs before Jobs that didn't. Essentially, the CEO decides which hill to climb. The right hill, the company makes $$$. The wrong hill, the company languishes. That's worth a h…

Like said, that's about one of the biggest companies in the world and one of the most successful. There are many examples where the CEO doesn't manage this (IBM, Boeing and many more for instance), the company doesn't languish and yet the CEO gets rewarded. Makes no sense then right? In your example, if you don't manage growth like Steve Jobs, how are you worth heckuva lot of money? You managed to not go broke? That's not worth so much... It's worth more than the top employees, but not 100x.

I'm talking about a lot smaller. Most mid-sized companies (nor the larger ones, but I specifically am not talking about those) are not this binary; they are just steady growth, not hockeysticks and for years/decades.

Re: San Francisco will put ‘CEO tax’ on the ballot this November

#36

Post by LockAndLol » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 10:11 AM UTC

0.1-0.6%? That's laughable.

I don't know if income tax is federal or a state issue, but if they simple increased it in the higher income bracket they would surely get more in their state coffers. (Yes, I know SF is a city).

SF could also add a tax for people with uninhabited homes in the city. If you don't live in it, you pay the amount of money the city would've made had somebody been living in it.

Re: San Francisco will put ‘CEO tax’ on the ballot this November

#37

Post by tluyben2 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 10:13 AM UTC

soulofmischief wrote: post #33

gorgoiler wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it the team captain which wins the football match?

Loaded question. Without the team captain, the team loses.

It also does without it's star players which is what I mean. A company needs a lot of people, but has a pool of star players who are redundant only on paper. If they really drop away, it's a massive issue. And if they drop away all at the same time, the company will stall or worse depending on size and cash position.

Ofcourse the large enterprises have (ISO etc) processes in place to make everything as process-driven as possible, but you can see that even in teams within MS / Google / Facebook there are superstars who are simply very hard to replace (and in these companies they are well compensated; but outside tech that might not be the case). Obviously it never happens that they leave all at the same time, so that's why it looks redundant.

Re: San Francisco will put ‘CEO tax’ on the ballot this November

#38

Post by RivieraKid » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 10:14 AM UTC

Galanwe wrote: post #16

pmlnr wrote: post #3

The fact that there are ceos who get paid 200x more, than an employee, is already outrageous.

Then why isn't everyone becoming CEO?

Because the number of CEO positions much lower than the number of people.

Re: San Francisco will put ‘CEO tax’ on the ballot this November

#39

Post by tluyben2 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 10:14 AM UTC

fastball wrote: post #30

fsh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just cherry-picking one particular case with a positive outcome. The last few Boeing CEOs were also paid tens of millions per year and ended up running the company (and two planes) into the ground.

Yes, but this is in response to "nobody should make 200x their employees". But it's really not that simple. Some CEOs are that valuable. Some are not. You need to figure out if they're a Boeing CEO or a Steve Jobs and compensate them accordingly.

Yes, some are probably. Steve Jobs, Nadella probably but it's maybe 10 in the world? The rest really are not.

Re: San Francisco will put ‘CEO tax’ on the ballot this November

#40

Post by fsh » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 10:15 AM UTC

asiachick wrote: post #24

pmlnr wrote: post #3

The fact that there are ceos who get paid 200x more, than an employee, is already outrageous.

Why? In Japan my CEO gets paid $1 million year and I make $50k a year. (20x) In the USA my CEO gets paid $60 million and I get paid $300k a year (200x) I'd much rather have the CEO getting paid 200x

I don't see a reason why these figures should be correlated.