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Moderna CEO made $400M last year–2,435x the median salary of employees

arstechnica.com

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Re: Moderna CEO made $400M last year–2,435x the median salary of employees

#11

Post by mikeyouse »

JimtheCoder wrote: post #5

In general, I wouldn't have a problem with this. It was a preplanned stock sale, and the value of Moderna skyrocketed, predictably. But, this... "In a congressional hearing in March, Sanders highlighted that Moderna created its vaccine in partnership with the National Institutes of Health and received $1.7 billion in federal grant money for clinical development." sort of changes things. The solution? I am not sure.

Perhaps we should do a sovereign wealth fund kind of thing where that type of funding grants the US taxpayer some common shares with no voting preference -- but if you think pure ROI -- $1.7B in investment to save millions and millions of lives worldwide isn't actually that problematic.

Re: Moderna CEO made $400M last year–2,435x the median salary of employees

#12

Post by jackmott42 »

JimtheCoder wrote: post #5

In general, I wouldn't have a problem with this. It was a preplanned stock sale, and the value of Moderna skyrocketed, predictably. But, this... "In a congressional hearing in March, Sanders highlighted that Moderna created its vaccine in partnership with the National Institutes of Health and received $1.7 billion in federal grant money for clinical development." sort of changes things. The solution? I am not sure.

The end game for america is either a few elites living in gated communities with the rest of us living in filth, or revolution ssss

Re: Moderna CEO made $400M last year–2,435x the median salary of employees

#13

Post by exogeny »

People want it both ways. They want private business to use the free market to develop more efficient and better solutions than a socialized system, but also a limit to just how much that free market should compensate them.

Either you're a capitalist or you're not. If the company in question was Disney or Apple, this wouldn't be appearing on HN in any capacity.

Re: Moderna CEO made $400M last year–2,435x the median salary of employees

#14

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

seydor wrote: post #2

> Bancel's haul was largely from pre-planned stock sales,

I recently encountered a situation:

"My husband and I are both managers in tech and each make $600k a year"

First, good for them, I guess, but also people constantly conflate stock-based compensation (which is compensation but very, very rarely a fixed rate of income) or windfall years or capital gains and hand wave them all together as "salary."

In the scenario I encountered, the couple lucked out in they both work at the same place and the company stock has appreciated significantly, but what wasn't said is that they cannot sustain that income beyond one year.

It's quite possible to make over $1M in a year, at least on paper -- I've done it a few times in my career. Making that much year over year without any windfalls is certainly more challenging. I'd never state "yeah I make over $1M/year" in a windfall year.

Re: Moderna CEO made $400M last year–2,435x the median salary of employees

#15

Post by TylerE »

exogeny wrote: post #13

People want it both ways. They want private business to use the free market to develop more efficient and better solutions than a socialized system, but also a limit to just how much that free market should compensate them. Either you're a capitalist or you're not. If the company in question was Disney or Apple, this wouldn't be appearing on HN in any capacity.

When there is so much fat cattery in the private sector, it is no longer more efficient.

Re: Moderna CEO made $400M last year–2,435x the median salary of employees

#16

Post by henryfjordan »

mikeyouse wrote: post #11
JimtheCoder wrote: post #5

In general, I wouldn't have a problem with this. It was a preplanned stock sale, and the value of Moderna skyrocketed, predictably. But, this... "In a congressional hearing in March, Sanders highlighted that Moderna created its vaccine in partnership with the National Institutes of Health and received $1.7 billion in federal grant money for clinical development." sort of changes things. The solution? I am not sure.

Perhaps we should do a sovereign wealth fund kind of thing where that type of funding grants the US taxpayer some common shares with no voting preference -- but if you think pure ROI -- $1.7B in investment to save millions and millions of lives worldwide isn't actually that problematic.

The investment isn't the problem, the profits are. We clearly could've only spent $1.3B for the same outcome.

Re: Moderna CEO made $400M last year–2,435x the median salary of employees

#17

Post by helaoban »

Moderna's only commercial product is the COVID-19 vaccine[1]. But hey, you were told to get the exact number of doses necessary to ensure the survival of humanity and no more than that!

1. https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1682852/0001... (see page 59).

Re: Moderna CEO made $400M last year–2,435x the median salary of employees

#19

Post by JamesBarney »

JimtheCoder wrote: post #5

In general, I wouldn't have a problem with this. It was a preplanned stock sale, and the value of Moderna skyrocketed, predictably. But, this... "In a congressional hearing in March, Sanders highlighted that Moderna created its vaccine in partnership with the National Institutes of Health and received $1.7 billion in federal grant money for clinical development." sort of changes things. The solution? I am not sure.

I'm not worried about it, this is probably some of the best 1.7 billion dollars the federal government has ever spent.

If the money came with strings, maybe the US government would have a little more money and Moderna stock holders a little less, or maybe we wouldn't have a Moderna. And the upside of the former is so smaller compared to the downside of the latter I think in this case we made the right choice.

Re: Moderna CEO made $400M last year–2,435x the median salary of employees

#20

Post by purpleblue »

He deserves it. Basically one of the people pushing mRNA since 2011, more than 10 years ago. Regardless of the politics behind it (I'm particularly anti-covid vaccine myself after the dust has settled), it's indisputable that this technology has a pathway that works and could solve many diseases in the future.
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