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CEO pay skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978: CEOs paid 399 times as much vs. worker

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Re: CEO pay skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978: CEOs paid 399 times as much vs. worker

#111

Post by lm28469 »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #85
lm28469 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's what the discussion was about in the first place wasn't it ? The inequalities between CEOs and workers grew, one side lives in absolute poverty, the other in absolute opulence The poor are still too poor to live properly and the rich are too rich to count, that's not how they sold us capitalism is it ? Wasn't it supposed to even out inequalities ? Money trickling down to the poorest ? Why are there still…

Our patron saint has this to say about it > For example, let's attack poverty, and if necessary damage wealth in the process. That's much more likely to work than attacking wealth in the hope that you will thereby fix poverty. [9] And if there are people getting rich by tricking consumers or lobbying the government for anti-competitive regulations or tax loopholes, then let's stop them. Not because it's causing econo…

> And if there are people getting rich by tricking consumers or lobbying the government for anti-competitive regulations or tax loopholes, then let's stop them. Not because it's causing economic inequality, but because it's stealing.

If we did that Bezos&co wouldn't have nearly as much money.

A big part of the wealth of these individual is tax evasion or """optimisation""", taxes which are supposed to be used to fix these inequalities... Again, these people don't exist in a vacuum, these massive companies became what they are by squeezing as much as they're legally (and some time not so legally) allowed to squeeze, it's our collective job to set the boundaries. Not doing anything is letting them decide and their end goal is squeezing us and the planet dry

You don't "attack poverty" with good intentions and nice speeches

Re: CEO pay skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978: CEOs paid 399 times as much vs. worker

#112

Post by deltree7 »

arcturus17 wrote: post #66

Like most people I think that this is ludicrous, but could someone give a shot at playing devil's advocate and justifying this? Are competent CEOs so much harder to get, do they really produce a 1,460% more value compared to '78, etc.?

Yes.

1) Technology has always helped Top Performers. So, it is natural that the impact of high performers will grow faster than average performers.

2) American CEOs now also increasingly service the rest of the world. So, naturally their Total-Addressable-Impact have grown significantly. US Management Innovation are adapted / copied quickly unlike the rest of the world

3) Musk, Jobs, Bezos, Nadella have demonstrably added Trillions of Dollars of value to their firms. So, it make sense to award a %age of value they create

Re: CEO pay skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978: CEOs paid 399 times as much vs. worker

#113

Post by cbsmith »

nell wrote: post #69

Capital allocators are always paid top dollar. CEOs are only a small part of it. Wall street bankers are paid top dollar too? They find investment opportunities that can generate returns. Traders make a lot of money too. What value do they add to society? They help in the price discovery of assets. Are they paid fairly, who knows? From a job complexity standpoint, CEO jobs are more challenging than bankers since they…

"Capital allocators are always paid top dollar."

That seems to be unrelated to the subject matter. I could just as easily say, "senior employees are always paid top dollar over junior employees".

Presumably, "capital allocators" were paid top dollar in 1978. Somehow though, their wages have grown 1460% relative to the people who actually put the capital to work.

Re: CEO pay skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978: CEOs paid 399 times as much vs. worker

#114

Post by _fat_santa »

lm28469 wrote: post #99
jokethrowaway wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech driven automation is creating opportunities that didn't exist before and there is way more competition. CEOs have a crucial impact on company and are paid in stocks. Does this article and related figure accounts for all the failed startups CEOs whose stock turned out to be worthless?

I want to say: so what ? Getting paid 50 times your employees isn't enough ? You need to get paid 400 times their salary ? Why stop there ? 800 times ? The invisible hand doesn't exist and without regulations these things will get worse and worse

It's the STOCK PRICE. Say you get 100 shares of a company at a value of $100/share every year you are CEO, that's a pay of $10k/yr. Now say the value goes up to $1000 because you helped get your company there.

And now all the people come out of the woodwork to tell you how greedy you are.

Re: CEO pay skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978: CEOs paid 399 times as much vs. worker

#115

Post by brian-armstrong »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #96
5544ffee wrote: post #75

Because CEOs are 399x smarter and work 399x harder! Plus they take all the risk! /s

I feel it's not a stretch to say your average ceo has more than 399x impact however. A 'simple decision' such as do I approve this product or not can make or break a company. The iPhone is a great example, it was far from considered a slam dunk money printer at the time. You can still find old articles from people wondering why you would want to browse the web on a phone.

The seat itself is more impactful yes, but the human sitting in it not necessarily.

We have brought 2000 muskets and 1 tank to war. We find the musketmen are not very effective, so we have chosen not to pay them very much. They just deserve less.

Re: CEO pay skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978: CEOs paid 399 times as much vs. worker

#116

Post by ls15 »

holbrad wrote: post #51
fistfucker3000 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't give a single fuck about the salary of the 0.0001% of the population that is billionaire CEO, that's not the problem. The problem is that basic necessities have been turned into a profit-printing machine and you pay 2K a month for a 500 square feet apartment in London. Interesting that you don’t see those things as part of the same problem but rather two separate unrelated issues.

How are they directly related? Is Bezos, Gates or Musk at fault for high UK house prices ? No, it's a failing of government policy. Straggling house building for decades, leads directly towards rampant land speculation. (70+% of a houses value is the land...)

Bezos, Gates and Musk are a result of failing of government too:

https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/y1xqul/oc_...

https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/y0a0ek/oc_...

https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/xgyut8/oc_...

Re: CEO pay skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978: CEOs paid 399 times as much vs. worker

#117

Post by Firmwarrior »

lm28469 wrote: post #111
Firmwarrior wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our patron saint has this to say about it > For example, let's attack poverty, and if necessary damage wealth in the process. That's much more likely to work than attacking wealth in the hope that you will thereby fix poverty. [9] And if there are people getting rich by tricking consumers or lobbying the government for anti-competitive regulations or tax loopholes, then let's stop them. Not because it's causing econo…

> And if there are people getting rich by tricking consumers or lobbying the government for anti-competitive regulations or tax loopholes, then let's stop them. Not because it's causing economic inequality, but because it's stealing. If we did that Bezos&co wouldn't have nearly as much money. A big part of the wealth of these individual is tax evasion or """optimisation""", taxes which are supposed to be used to fix…

You also don't attack poverty by randomly trying and failing to lash out at everyone who isn't in poverty

How about we talk about actually attacking poverty? Coincidentally, the way that Gates, Buffett, Bezos, etc seem to be doing with all their money and time

Re: CEO pay skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978: CEOs paid 399 times as much vs. worker

#118

Post by impulser_ »

Might have to due with the fact that the typical company is a lot larger than they were in 1978.

Largest company in 1978 was GM they did about 53b in revenue, and 4b in gross profit.

Largest company in 2022 is Apple they did 400b in revenue and 170b in gross profit.

The list of people that can run and manage Apple is one, Tim Cook. The list of people that can work at Apple is millions.

Re: CEO pay skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978: CEOs paid 399 times as much vs. worker

#119

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #85
lm28469 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's what the discussion was about in the first place wasn't it ? The inequalities between CEOs and workers grew, one side lives in absolute poverty, the other in absolute opulence The poor are still too poor to live properly and the rich are too rich to count, that's not how they sold us capitalism is it ? Wasn't it supposed to even out inequalities ? Money trickling down to the poorest ? Why are there still…

Our patron saint has this to say about it > For example, let's attack poverty, and if necessary damage wealth in the process. That's much more likely to work than attacking wealth in the hope that you will thereby fix poverty. [9] And if there are people getting rich by tricking consumers or lobbying the government for anti-competitive regulations or tax loopholes, then let's stop them. Not because it's causing econo…

No offense but a significant proportion of HN readers and contributors (me included) are here for the tech news and don’t think much of PG as the essays you quote brightly illustrate.

Re: CEO pay skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978: CEOs paid 399 times as much vs. worker

#120

Post by cbsmith »

deltree7 wrote: post #112
arcturus17 wrote: post #66

Like most people I think that this is ludicrous, but could someone give a shot at playing devil's advocate and justifying this? Are competent CEOs so much harder to get, do they really produce a 1,460% more value compared to '78, etc.?

Yes. 1) Technology has always helped Top Performers. So, it is natural that the impact of high performers will grow faster than average performers. 2) American CEOs now also increasingly service the rest of the world. So, naturally their Total-Addressable-Impact have grown significantly. US Management Innovation are adapted / copied quickly unlike the rest of the world 3) Musk, Jobs, Bezos, Nadella have demonstrably…

> Musk, Jobs, Bezos, Nadella have demonstrably added Trillions of Dollars of value to their firms. So, it make sense to award a %age of value they create

Unlike CEO's of yore who contributed a tenth of the value to their companies?

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