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

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

#61

Post by robertlagrant »

tluyben2 wrote: post #35
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…

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'…

The CEO generally is the top employee. Jobs was worth more because he also had a significant ownership percentage.

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

#62

Post by fastball »

tluyben2 wrote: post #37
soulofmischief wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In a business with < 50 employees, the CEO is not getting paid 200x.

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

#63

Post by robertlagrant »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #49
gambiting wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? Everyone can start their own company and become a CEO overnight. The answer isn't what you said it is.

Sure you can pay yourself 200x nothing! But the argument is people are fighting for those well paid posts at established enterprises.

Yeah. The equivalent would be saying the lottery is easy by only looking at lottery winners.

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

#64

Post by roenxi »

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.

> Some CEOs are that valuable.

The question isn't "are they valuable" though. The question was "how much should they be paid". There are people in labs, technical committees and various other key institiutions who create untold billions of dollars in value far in excess of what Jobs did. I doubt Alexander Fleming made money in proportion to the value of his contribution.

I don't necessarily disagree with how CEOs are paid. But I do disagree with the idea that value factors into the conversation somehow. Nobody is paid based on their value except by accident.

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

#65

Post by tluyben2 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #53
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…

"I do see why CEO's (and all c-level if they are founders, have board seats, are early investors, have a high amount of %) should be compensated well over employees; they take the risks. Or rather; they should take the risks" What risks do they or should they take to deserve higher salaries? These people typically have golden parachutes from which they'll make out rather well if the company does poorly, and they typi…

I can only speak from where I live and have lived, but low-level, well actually all employees outside the people with significant shareholding, when they get fired, get 75% of their last earnings for 2 months and after that 70% from the state. The company has to pay a part of that IF they can.

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

#66

Post by RivieraKid »

tluyben2 wrote: post #56
RivieraKid wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What risks are they taking? If your general argument is that the job has downsides, it's bullshit. Even if CEOs had the same salary as fast food workers, people would overwhelmingly prefer to be CEOs because of social status, meaning, power to improve and change things, freedom and perhaps most importantly, you don't have to actually physically work, you basically just talk to people, think and make decisions.

> people would overwhelmingly prefer to be CEOs Really? How many people with a steady job you know who want to be CEO? Of a company with more than 10 people that is and that's even a bit pretentious to call that a CEO, but let's say; 10+ company. How many people do you personally know that would say; 'hell yeah, that sounds great'. I know 0 who are not CEO's already; the rest do not want the responsibility, the insec…

The preceding part of the quote is important:

> Even if CEOs had the same salary as fast food workers, people would overwhelmingly prefer to be CEOs

Yes, I think most people would prefer to be CEOs if all things except salary were unchanged. Being a fast food worker is not something people enjoy to do 5 day in a week and it's a boring, low status, manual job.

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

#67

Post by user5994461 »

Low pay employees are hired through contracting agencies, they're not on the books of the mother company and have none of the benefits.

The tax seems to ignore that entirely, contractors don't factor in the median pay of the company at all. If it weren't bad enough, the tax will only encourage executives to push even more employees to contracting.

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

#68

Post by tchaffee »

fastball wrote: post #59
tchaffee wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many CEOs who aren't famous because they failed still got paid at that 200x rate.

Yes, but the solution is not "nobody should get paid at that rate", it's "pay people in accordance with their actual performance". If you are the CEO and your company does terribly, you should probably get paid 0 that year.

> you should probably get paid 0 that year.

Most CEOs in the USA can demand contracts that give them a massive golden umbrella, fail or not. Why would any CEO accept less than that?

But to answer the harder question, I don't think anyone should get paid at that rate. No one is worth that much once you take into account negative externalities. As an extreme example, Exxon executives might be worth a negative number to society at this point.

Getting more nuanced, huge wage gaps are highly correlated with lots of costly things like increased crimes rates, and less costly but important things like happiness.

I think the world is increasingly becoming aware that the USA is nowhere near #1 in many measures, and that a handful of other countries have managed to make a measurably better society. And in all those countries you see far smaller wage gaps. Could be correlation, but I think with enough time we will see that it is causation. Humans instinctively know that kings are not God-like and CEOs are not worth 200x more than the thousands of employees who work just as hard. Leaders with benefits are fine. Leaders with excessive benefits have never ended well in all of human history. The fact that it is happening now due to "market forces" instead of royal lineage. perhaps makes it a bit more tolerable temporarily. But I think those huge wage gaps are increasingly becoming less tolerable even to Americans. Other countries have already arrived.

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

#69

Post by tluyben2 »

fastball wrote: post #59
tchaffee wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many CEOs who aren't famous because they failed still got paid at that 200x rate.

Yes, but the solution is not "nobody should get paid at that rate", it's "pay people in accordance with their actual performance". If you are the CEO and your company does terribly, you should probably get paid 0 that year.

Agreed. They can still end up 'getting' more than 200x that year by selling shares, but that's not really related imho.

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

#70

Post by quickthrower2 »

fastball wrote: post #50
quickthrower2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you figure that out? If someone is genius looking 20 years into the future like a time machine, they may look like an idiot today.

I have no idea. But that’s not the point. The point is that Apple and Apples shareholders (and probably Apple customers) would probably trade 1000 existing Apple employees if they could just get Jobs back. Some leaders are worth it. This is why blanket statements like “no CEO should make 200x another employee” or (in the same vein) “nobody should have $1B” are silly. Constructive conversations don’t start with highly…

Yeah I agree and with Jobs, Bezos etc. I mean they have all the power right? Is someone going to cap their pay at their height. It’s like not feeding the golden goose. I’m not sure how this fairs for the “average” ceo though.
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