281–290 of 717 posts
Biggest mark of utter management failure is making too small a layoff in April (9%) and needing to do another round today. Combined that’s a 30% headcount reduction since Q1-2022
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The rich don’t see it that way. At its core wealth accumulation is a scoring contest so every penny counts for those care. Also if you have all the material needs that is satisfied, then you go after the rare hard to get high value exclusive money drain this is human nature. For your specific example what that 50m might make difference it maybe a bigger jet that flies further or a second jet for the family or a yatch…
I agree with you but there is also the dynamic that there is always other richer people than you with richer lifestyles. So while you might think that one jet is enough for you if you had friends who didn't own a jet. When all your friends own 3 jets it makes you feel like you should also own 3 or whatever random expense you can imagine. And while you say "human nature" I'd rather say it's "human illness." They someo…
I know of a billionaire (one of the ones most HNers consider evil) that had a lot of the local millionaires sneering at him when he didn't renovate the vacation house that he bought in the kind of place where those kinds of people buy vacation houses. According to the help at the yacht club his rational was that it wasn't worth his time to think about and there was no sense in paying someone to manage the process because from his POV there's no difference between vacationing in a house his contractor optioned out vs vacationing in one the last owner optioned out. That said, I think it may have been a "guest house" because upon Googling he has a much more extensive mansion in the area.
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executives should be compensated for the performance of the company in the future, not the current quarter or year. this is the board's fault for failing to set effective incentives.
Isn't that what a vesting period is supposed to enforce?
people talk about ESG... imagine what the world would look like if energy company executives were compensated based on the health of the company (and by proxy the health of the economy) ten years in the future...
also maybe more tax rules along the lines of long/short cap gains that reduce the short term time value of money.
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Exactly - all these articles about CEO compensation are misleading. Case in point: Intel's CEO's 2021 salary was reported as almost $180M. In reality, he got only about $10M. He hit literally none of the targets that would allow him to get the rest of the compensation (although in theory he has a few years to hit those targets).
It’s case by case. I have seen some accurate CEO comp headlines. Some publications certainly bat better than others. As for Intel: $10m a year is still a lot of money. I have also heard that targets are occasionally hit. ;-D
In absolute terms, 100% yes it is.
In "CEO of a major corporation most people in the world have heard about," it's basically nothing.
> As CEO, I approved and took responsibility for our ambitious staffing trajectory—this is on me Reminder that Vlad Tenev received $800M in compensation in 2021. In the same year the company made terrible bets on crypto and banking, took an irreversible reputation hit among its core user base because of the GME fiasco, had multiple user data breaches, was subject to several investigations and was fined hundreds of mi…
> As CEO, I approved and took responsibility for our ambitious staffing trajectory—this is on me Reminder that Vlad Tenev received $800M in compensation in 2021. In the same year the company made terrible bets on crypto and banking, took an irreversible reputation hit among its core user base because of the GME fiasco, had multiple user data breaches, was subject to several investigations and was fined hundreds of mi…
Vlad Tenev received $800m for taking the company public per an RSU agreement the board gave him in 2019 and $800m was when the stock price was $50+. Nows its only worth $130m. Banking is standard with discount brokers, you have a sweep account that is probably on an FDIC insured bank. GME issue was a lack of capital to settle GME trades. They owed $3 billion to NSCC. Robinhood was insolvent but people always flock to…
Ultimately RH and others didn't have the ability to raise the crazy amount of capital they needed to cover trades over a very short time and instead of breaking these requirements and receiving the consequences (getting taken over by SIPC? or whatever, I don't actually know) they halted trading.
Failure to predict an unprecedented future, I suppose.
What they write: "As CEO, I approved and took responsibility for our ambitious staffing trajectory – this is on me. " What he totally forgot to mention: "I also take a pay cut to reduce the opex burden on the company and to retain as many FTE as possible"
"Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make"
Lord Farquad and Zapp B would make great CEOs.
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Company I work for gives international Mental Health Day off, October 10th.
It seems strange to fix a specific day, people might need a day off for dealing with their mental health on another day of the year.
Obviously, serious mental health issues are not restricted to a fixed day per year. Yet the company did give some relief, which they also could not have done at all. There's a real world cost to giving you that day, and in my view, money talks.
More importantly, I find consistency between messaging and actions important.
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Vlad created an app and created value for lots of people. People chose to give him money in the form of investment for his company. I’d say plenty of people are motivated to become founders and create value. Most people just aren’t good at it or prefer a comfy and safe life. Nothing wrong with that either but don’t expect the same payout as someone who worked harder than you.
This really just seems like more a comment on how you relatively value networking compared to skills acquisition. Being a technical worker instead of a manager isn't a flaw - I am happy to continue delivering technical product to my company and I definitely deliver significant value. I don't disagree that starting a company comes with risks and a personal investment that warrants increased compensation - but right no…
The other type of CEO is one who joins after founding. Their compensation depends on providing tangible measurable growth for the company. Driving 5% additional revenue for a company like google is worth billions, so their pay is considerate with the value they provide. It’s been shown in research that a good CEO can make or break a company.
You say you deliver tons of value but you don’t explain why your pay is high as a technical worker. It’s high because the market is tight and there aren’t enough skilled technical workers. There’s plenty of other industries like biotech where they deliver significant value but don’t get paid as much as software. Same goes for CEO’s it’s an important position and there aren’t that many people that can do the job.
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> ... took an irreversible reputation hit among its core user base because of the GME fiasco God I'm so sick of hearing this. It comes from people who seriously don't know what happened. let me explain: RH had (and still has) a service that you can trade immediately on signing up and sending funds rather than waiting for them to clear. This mostly works out fine because people buy different things and you have the un…
The fact that other brokerages could handle the counterparty risk with stronger financials than Robinhood (eg: by continuing to permit securities purchases) does highlight reputational risk in that you're clearly running an inferior brokerage compared to the competition. Ordinary market conditions wouldn't add visibility to this fact, but unfortunately there was always the risk and the situation had occurred.
I've never done business with Robinhood, but they never seemed to be a quality brokerage. I seem to recall they didn't support limit orders for some time (but I could be misremembering). I do thank them for their work in reducing retail comissions to zero though.