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Amazon investors nuke ethics overhaul and say yes to $212M CEO pay

theregister.com

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Re: Amazon investors nuke ethics overhaul and say yes to $212M CEO pay

#61

Post by OminousWeapons »

RONROC wrote: post #12

[flagged]

> We need hard limits on executive pay because if you adjust every other employees salary at a truly fair rate, Jassy should be lucky to make 10 million a year.

This makes no sense. Why should executive salary be tied or compared to the salary of any other employee role? Should my salary as a dev be a function of what a janitor makes? Should my Manager's salary be tied to my salary? I'm not sure where this idea originally came from but compensation should be based on the value the employee is adding , the rarity of that employee's skills, and how in demand that skill set it, not some arbitrary multiplier of another role's salary. I don't care if a CEO is paid NX the rate of the lowest paid role as long as they are adding value commensurate with their salary. Also, "truly fair rate" according to who, you? What makes you qualified to be the arbiter of corporate compensation?

> There is literally no job on earth that should command this price tag.

The people who have a vested interest in deciding this, namely Amazon shareholders, apparently disagree with you.

Re: Amazon investors nuke ethics overhaul and say yes to $212M CEO pay

#62

Post by joecot »

ciabattabread wrote: post #59
joecot wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. And I would argue that the CIA should also get the boot. Probably about half of AWS's GovCloud should. But all the other heinous stuff that the US government agencies do abroad someone (that's not me) could argue is in the furtherance of national security. ICE is absolutely, clearly, not. There is no justifiable defense of the things ICE does, which is why it's the one most targeted.

Does this strategy of shaming the corporation who wants a nice big government contract instead of, you know, petitioning your federally elected representatives, actually work?

I just double-checked with my peers and it turns out it's possible to protest two different things at once, and that petitioning at multiple sources of the problem is often more effective at getting things done.

Re: Amazon investors nuke ethics overhaul and say yes to $212M CEO pay

#63

Post by conductr »

ssklash wrote: post #36
chrisseaton wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> should ... truly fair ... should be ... acceptable How do you determine these absolutes? Why is your 'should' and 'fair' set at whatever value you're using, and not whatever value someone else determined? The only 'fair' is what someone is willing to pay. If you aren't willing to pay someone 200m... then don't. Why do you care if someone else is willing and does?

Fair in the sense OP is using it is in the moral sense, not the economic sense. Paying someone tens of millions of dollars when the lowest paid workers in that company make ten bucks an hour may be "fair" in the economic sense, in that it's what the market will bear, but I don't think it is any way fair in a moral sense. I think too often people let the "morals" of the market replace actual human morals, and assume t…

If you think it’s fair in an “economic” sense, consider that Amazon employs 1.1 million people. That’s a decent sized city and a very complex economy. Austin Texas for example is about 10% smaller and home of both Elon Musk and a large number of people who could be making more money at amazon’s lowest paying job.

Re: Amazon investors nuke ethics overhaul and say yes to $212M CEO pay

#64

Post by Supermancho »

mikkergp wrote: post #46
jaywalk wrote: post #25

Most of the stuff in the "ethics overhaul" is pie in the sky nonsense. Take this bullet point: "Whether AWS does due diligence to know if cloud customers are using its services in a way that contributes to human rights violations" What does that even mean? How could that possibly be accomplished? Who decides what constitutes a "human rights violation" in the first place?

> Who decides what constitutes a "human rights violation" in the first place? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology How about we start with rape, torture, and murder, and work our way back. But like really. How do we figure anything out? We work at it, we learn we make mistakes and we grow. It seems like just throwing you're hands up is oppositional to the entire notions of innovation that guide tech companies i…

> It's hard but we pay CEO's $212 million dollars a year to do hard things.

*21m/yr, if you read the details.

Re: Amazon investors nuke ethics overhaul and say yes to $212M CEO pay

#65

Post by dvt »

drewrv wrote: post #38
dvt wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need hard limits on executive pay because if you adjust every other employees salary at a truly fair rate, Jassy should be lucky to make 10 million a year. Fair, by definition, is when the market reaches equilibrium. The shareholders think this is a fair salary. Why is your opinion more valid than theirs? Sure, the salary is high, but it seems commensurate with the value that Amazon generates. Literally 30% of t…

> Fair, by definition, is when the market reaches equilibrium. This is absurd. "The market" is amoral: it's just a collection of human behaviors that are shaped by laws, culture, and customs. All of those can change, the law can change quite easily.

> "The market" is amoral

Yeah, exactly. Fairness in the marketplace is purely a math problem, no morality involved.

Re: Amazon investors nuke ethics overhaul and say yes to $212M CEO pay

#66

Post by bigfudge »

AcerbicZero wrote: post #45
boeingUH60 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is who gets to define what is "fair"? I have similar qualms about an athlete who nets $46 million per year [1] for shooting balls into a basket. But, then, who am I to decide his "fair" pay? His club obviously thinks he's worth that… 1 - https://hoopshype.com/player/stephen-curry/salary/

Probably the crab at the bottom of the bucket? Limits on compensation are ineffective at achieving their goals under the best of circumstances, and the inevitable "unintended" consequences of further government manipulation in the market place would likely have negative effects.

We set the context in which these forms can operate though. We can decide that forms who pay >10m in comp to individuals are by definition not contributing to social well-being… they must be exploiting some assymetry, rent seeking etc. We don’t have to work out how and why in each case… just that in balance that is almost always the case and so we make that behaviour economically unviable through taxation.

Re: Amazon investors nuke ethics overhaul and say yes to $212M CEO pay

#67

Post by 015a »

RONROC wrote: post #12

[flagged]

I agree, and I think the argument "well most of it is stock" is also bullshit. Comp is comp; warehouse workers could be granted RSUs, but they don't (afaik) because reasons. Every dollar he's compensated could be compensation elsewhere. Every share; to someone else.

A classic counter-argument is "well who gets to determine what is fair". I'd counter that with: who determines how much value he, inextricably and uniquely, has added to the company? It's all a farce. No one actually knows (but, oftentimes, the people at the top have bunk reports to justify their position, a privilege line workers don't have).

We need a law which at least begins to lay the foundations for something like: the total all-sources hourly-adjusted compensation for the highest compensated person (employee, contractor, anyone) in any company cannot be more than 1000x the lowest. Regardless of the specifics, the thing I love about that wording is: Amazon absolutely could not afford to pay all of their people $212,000+. But by them saying that, they're in-no-uncertain-terms saying that they're totally unwilling to lower Jassy's comp; drop it to $65M, and now lets try again, can you really not afford to pay everyone at-least $65k? Big Boy Jassy wants a raise, you gotta find the money for everyone; and if you can't, is he really doing that good of a job?

"The talented execs will leave" and go where? Europe? China? Good! The US has massive talent at every traunch of a typical company. Get out! There's dozens of people inside your own company who could do a better job in your seat than you, for a tenth the price, and the only reason they're not sitting there is the gatekeeping every board and exec team participates in to defend their throne.

Re: Amazon investors nuke ethics overhaul and say yes to $212M CEO pay

#68

Post by bigfudge »

chrisseaton wrote: post #16
RONROC wrote: post #12

[flagged]

> should ... truly fair ... should be ... acceptable How do you determine these absolutes? Why is your 'should' and 'fair' set at whatever value you're using, and not whatever value someone else determined? The only 'fair' is what someone is willing to pay. If you aren't willing to pay someone 200m... then don't. Why do you care if someone else is willing and does?

Because firms doing this has negative externalities - to be able to do this they are always going to be exploiting other workers or consumers, or competing in ways which harm society as a whole.

Re: Amazon investors nuke ethics overhaul and say yes to $212M CEO pay

#69

Post by bigfudge »

bigfudge wrote: post #68
chrisseaton wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> should ... truly fair ... should be ... acceptable How do you determine these absolutes? Why is your 'should' and 'fair' set at whatever value you're using, and not whatever value someone else determined? The only 'fair' is what someone is willing to pay. If you aren't willing to pay someone 200m... then don't. Why do you care if someone else is willing and does?

Because firms doing this has negative externalities - to be able to do this they are always going to be exploiting other workers or consumers, or competing in ways which harm society as a whole.

To be clear… just creating this kind of wealth imbalance in society is itself a form of harm.

Re: Amazon investors nuke ethics overhaul and say yes to $212M CEO pay

#70

Post by mikkergp »

Supermancho wrote: post #64
mikkergp wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who decides what constitutes a "human rights violation" in the first place? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology How about we start with rape, torture, and murder, and work our way back. But like really. How do we figure anything out? We work at it, we learn we make mistakes and we grow. It seems like just throwing you're hands up is oppositional to the entire notions of innovation that guide tech companies i…

> It's hard but we pay CEO's $212 million dollars a year to do hard things. *21m/yr, if you read the details.

My bad. You're right. I think my point still stands though ;-). Some of these companies are really good at figuring out hard things.
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