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Amazon walking back raises after internal bug miscalculated compensation

businessinsider.com

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Re: Amazon walking back raises after internal bug miscalculated compensation

#31

Post by effingwewt »

arbitrage wrote: post #24
JKCalhoun wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha ha, back in the late 90's, Apple took away profit sharing as soon as there was a profit. Specifically, I should say, Steve Jobs took away profit sharing.

It wasn't just Steve Jobs. It's never just one person. Many people enable punitive & regressive decisions like that.

This is what's great about being a CEO!

Things go bad? Ship is too big to steer, the failure is on the whole company, the CEO didn't even know, they swear!

Things go right? Obviously it was all the hard work of the CEO they definitely deserve millions in bonuses!

It was Steve Jobs, so was the wage-fixing. They were all so stupid about it they literally got busted doing it.

Doesn't matter what the company makes, only the C-Suite will reap the rewards.

But hey, maybe some $ will trickle down to the people who make the money for the company...

Re: Amazon walking back raises after internal bug miscalculated compensation

#33

Post by xkqd »

ripper1138 wrote: post #25
noasaservice wrote: post #13

Quoted post unavailable.

Quoted post unavailable.

It’s a solid summary of the most commonly known complaints and confirmed condition, and the commenter’s opinion is clear.

If someone values working for a firm that doesn’t have a questionable relationship with their employees, the comment provides value. It’s up to the reader to determine if the good outweighs this list; or at least enough to work there.

Re: Amazon walking back raises after internal bug miscalculated compensation

#34

Post by coldpie »

BeetleB wrote: post #26
a-priori wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RSUs are always granted as a number of shares. It's kind of the point of them, so the employee benefits from stock appreciation since their hire date. However, in offer paperwork, it will sometimes be stated as a dollar value. This is for two reasons: the first is that RSUs need to be approved by the board at a meeting, which can happen some time after the hire date, at which time the dollar value is converted into s…

Since there are comments saying things like "I've never seen them based on dollar value": My well known company has always granted stocks based on dollar value. Many employees incorrectly thought it was "number of shares", but if anyone actually asked the manager who decided how many shares they would get, the answer was always "We're given a dollar budget in shares to allocate amongst our reports - the system then c…

Yes, a place I'm familiar with gives you a dollar amount. At RSU distribution time (i.e. when you actually receive them, not at offer-time), you will receive that dollar amount of shares, regardless of each share's value. TBH I'm not sure why they structure it this way (maybe fewer taxes than payroll? or looks better on a balance sheet, somehow?).

Re: Amazon walking back raises after internal bug miscalculated compensation

#35

Post by s1artibartfast »

ineedasername wrote: post #12
s1artibartfast wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they get a fixed number of RSUs. I have always seen them assigned in dollar value, usually as a % of dollar salary

In your compensation letter it may say a $ value but it’s just a formulaic presentation based on the fixed # of RSUs. You’re not compensated by “You’re getting $20,000 in however many RSUs that can buy at the time”. It’s “you’re getting 100 RSUs” and then whenever you get them your compensation letter states their current $ value.

>You’re not compensated by “You’re getting $20,000 in however many RSUs that can buy at the time”

In my company this is exactly how it works.

Bonus is X% of salary and the exact number of RSUs and SARs is floating until the time they are granted.

Everyone hopes the market has a bad day when the bonus is granted.

I assumed this is how it works at all large companies.

Re: Amazon walking back raises after internal bug miscalculated compensation

#36

Post by Scea91 »

ineedasername wrote: post #12
s1artibartfast wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they get a fixed number of RSUs. I have always seen them assigned in dollar value, usually as a % of dollar salary

In your compensation letter it may say a $ value but it’s just a formulaic presentation based on the fixed # of RSUs. You’re not compensated by “You’re getting $20,000 in however many RSUs that can buy at the time”. It’s “you’re getting 100 RSUs” and then whenever you get them your compensation letter states their current $ value.

Not Amazon, but when I receive RSUs it is denominated in the dollar amount. In a year when the first part vests the dollars are converted to stock units based on the price at that moment. Thus I do not know how many units of stock I am receiving until the first vesting event, because I don't know what the price will be in a year.

Re: Amazon walking back raises after internal bug miscalculated compensation

#37

Post by noasaservice »

xkqd wrote: post #33
ripper1138 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

It’s a solid summary of the most commonly known complaints and confirmed condition, and the commenter’s opinion is clear. If someone values working for a firm that doesn’t have a questionable relationship with their employees, the comment provides value. It’s up to the reader to determine if the good outweighs this list; or at least enough to work there.

Indeed. And being a cloud/systems engineer well versed in Azure -and- AWS, along with networks, DCops, FedRAMP, and more, I'm in the ideal target group to get hired in to Amazon and spend a few years there.

But I see how they treat their employees from lowest to highest. I don't want any part of that.

Re: Amazon walking back raises after internal bug miscalculated compensation

#38

Post by cooneyb »

monkpit wrote: post #3

The raises had to be approved though, right? It seems like an excuse to blame software for this. And it seems really off-putting that they wouldn’t just own the error, but instead try to revert it.

no such thing as "bank error in your favor" anymore i suppose

Re: Amazon walking back raises after internal bug miscalculated compensation

#40

Post by s1artibartfast »

drstewart wrote: post #10
s1artibartfast wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they get a fixed number of RSUs. I have always seen them assigned in dollar value, usually as a % of dollar salary

I've never seen them assigned a dollar value (actually, in one case: SpaceX, which also had a 5 year vesting schedule instead of a standard 4 year). That would defeat the purpose of RSUs.

How would it defeat the purpose of RSUs?

If you get 100k USD worth of RSUs on start date, and the stock value goes up 10X you still have a lot of skin in the game.

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