Overpaid CEOs 2019 • Hacker News Board

Re: Overpaid CEOs 2019

#201

Post by munk-a » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 6:32 PM UTC

skookumchuck wrote: post #104

heydonovan wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You share the company's wealth by offering stock as part of compensation. This works well for the high earning tech employees, who can pay their bills with their first 100k and save the rest or invest it. It doesn't work as well for middle/lower class employees who need immediate cash instead of stocks that they can't always hold until it's worth more. Imagine working for Amazon back in the day for $30k, and come tim…

Oh pooh, I as a lower/middle class employee got a lot of stock options. They were worthless because the company stock sank, but I liked getting the options, and if the company had been managed better I would have made much bank. > I'd wager most lower income folks would take the money, since that's food on the table. Instant gratification is a large reason why lower income folks stay poor. (As for "food on the table"…

Passing up a salary increase for stock options will occasionally pay off big, and if you have good confidence in the company go for it... but a lot of companies fail and those options become worthless.

You got no money out of your options, if you were asked about the options and could have declined them for a modest wage you would have made more.

(Also, your post needlessly and illogically attacks lower income folks, just give it a rest. Rich people buy fancy cars that are equally worthless instead of responsibly investing their money.)

Re: Overpaid CEOs 2019

#202

Post by munk-a » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

lixue wrote: post #110

munk-a wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In three days you can accomplish what someone else (assuming they had training on par with what you received) would take a year to do? Assuming you step in and out of the office four times a day, do you think it's reasonable to hire someone solely to open and hand you an umbrella when you leave the office and take it from you when you return as a fair trade to the minute you might spend fiddling with the umbrella cov…

"assuming they had training on par with what you received" feels unfair: Generally, what makes someone a 10x engineer is exactly that most people lack that level of training, experience, and skill. It's not about innate talent, but it's still a valuable, rare, and therefore marketable skill. Achieving 100x results isn't something you can guarantee, and it doesn't even involve writing a lot of code. It comes from bloc…

If it's a question of experience then lets briefly discard the bottom 80% of earners, of the 20% left how different do you think their levels of experience could be when they retire?

Do you think the senior devops guy who can single handedly debug a network issue while enjoying a day on the beach is lacking in experience compared to a CEO or did they just get a different type of experience because companies only need one CEO but they need a bunch of devops guys.

I believe a good group in upper management does improve company performance but 100x is unreasonable. There is a talent to being able to respond correctly to different scenarios but you also need to be lucky enough to be in a scenario where wild success is possible and your response is only made possible by the team of people that drive the engine beneath you.

Re: Overpaid CEOs 2019

#203

Post by BookmarkSaver » Tue, Feb 26, 2019, 1:22 AM UTC

skookumchuck wrote: post #160

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think any connection to "royalty" or anointed status is secondary and completely tied to individual executives and their performance (or at least reputation). What is true is the myth of individual efficacy. That a good CEO will have a successful company, and that a successful company is a sign of a great CEO. The reality is obviously that there are countless factors that affect company performance. It's not that p…

Yet the historical fortunes of many companies are clearly dependent on their CEOs. See Apple and Microsoft, for example. It's much like how military battle outcomes are clearly dependent on the decision the general makes, for better or worse.

Well, yeah. Obviously they are important.