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Overpaid CEOs 2019

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Re: Overpaid CEOs 2019

#81

Post by munk-a »

CountSessine wrote: post #68
ryandrake wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re exactly right. Senior leadership (including CEOs) have the best of both worlds: they get the upside when the company succeeds, but none of the downside when the company fails. The worst that happens is they get fired and go make more millions as CEO of some other company. In fact, they often get upside when the company fails (what was Marissa Mayer’s exit package?) It’s a helluva deal they got going.

In fact, they often get upside when the company fails (what was Marissa Mayer’s exit package?) Marissa Mayer got a nice compensation package because she did well by Yahoo investors: she managed to trick Verizon into paying real money to buy the hulking wreck of Yahoo. If you start out thinking that Yahoo could ever possibly have been saved in any alternate universe, you can get all-kinds of angry or disappointed in M…

I'm not saying that's illogical or irrelevant given how the market works, but... how is this sane when considered from the benefit of society. A failing company managed to recoup some funds investors were expecting to lose by ripping off a healthy sustainable company. Why should we care about reimbursing investors like this when the whole value they add to the free market is an ability to accurately predict (and assist) in a company's growth. If that company tanks they failed at their job and shouldn't get a subsidy to continue doing their job by handicapping a healthy company.

Re: Overpaid CEOs 2019

#82

Post by blattimwind »

CountSessine wrote: post #68
ryandrake wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re exactly right. Senior leadership (including CEOs) have the best of both worlds: they get the upside when the company succeeds, but none of the downside when the company fails. The worst that happens is they get fired and go make more millions as CEO of some other company. In fact, they often get upside when the company fails (what was Marissa Mayer’s exit package?) It’s a helluva deal they got going.

In fact, they often get upside when the company fails (what was Marissa Mayer’s exit package?) Marissa Mayer got a nice compensation package because she did well by Yahoo investors: she managed to trick Verizon into paying real money to buy the hulking wreck of Yahoo. If you start out thinking that Yahoo could ever possibly have been saved in any alternate universe, you can get all-kinds of angry or disappointed in M…

A better example might be Carly Fiorina.

Re: Overpaid CEOs 2019

#83

Post by teamonkey »

zdragnar wrote: post #16
munk-a wrote: post #4

The CEO (and upper management in general) pay scale is total BS when viewed through normal compensation lenses, unlike normal people who are paid for their time, upper management is usually compensated on performance -but- they are compensated on the performance of their company (or division) and they get all the pie. Since nobody else's pay is scaling with performance (outside of bonuses which in my experience usual…

And yet, if you took Blizzard CEO's total pay (from the article, I think around $28 mil) and spread that over the nearly 10k employees, everyone gets an extra $3k, which wouldn't do diddly squat for retention. Also, losing 40% of growth would be pretty awful for anyone who has company stock (employees, 401ks, investors) especially if that's year over year.

$28 mil is in the order of a year's development on a large AAA title. That's quite some opportunity cost.

Re: Overpaid CEOs 2019

#84

Post by maxxxxx »

heydonovan wrote: post #77
munk-a wrote: post #4

The CEO (and upper management in general) pay scale is total BS when viewed through normal compensation lenses, unlike normal people who are paid for their time, upper management is usually compensated on performance -but- they are compensated on the performance of their company (or division) and they get all the pie. Since nobody else's pay is scaling with performance (outside of bonuses which in my experience usual…

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…

"I've always wondered what it would look like if were were paid in multipliers instead of salaries. The lowest would get 1x, middle folks 5x, and CEO maybe 20x. The usual "a rising tide lifts all boats" mindset."

I like that idea!

Re: Overpaid CEOs 2019

#85

Post by HaloZero »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #15

Reed Hastings founded Netflix and built it into what it is now, a dominant player in the entertainment industry. He did it through a long history of crafty, well planned technology and entertainment decisions. Not only this but he was able to build it up from so little and in such a small amount of time.

The average salary also seems to be $180,000 which is pretty good.

Re: Overpaid CEOs 2019

#87

Post by rhizome »

zdragnar wrote: post #62
munk-a wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as a note, $3k a year raise for a QA tester making 42k is going to do quite a bit for retention. If 3k seems like nothing then I have a bathroom renovation that I'd love for you to bankroll with your pocket change.

Oh I know, I was making less than that when I started my career. My point was I'd be willing to be that for most people, a single raise isn't the straw that breaks the camels back when it comes to whether or not they'd stay at Activision Blizzard. From what I've heard from people who worked there (specifically the Activision side) is that it isn't a place I would want to work myself, and $3k wouldn't be enough to con…

A single raise? Doesn't the CEO make $28MM every year?

Re: Overpaid CEOs 2019

#88

Post by freeflight »

goldcd wrote: post #75
goldcd wrote: post #57

Activision Blizzard googles 4k employees and.. Last year managed to re-make Crash Bandicoot & Spyro - and a CoD. That's it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Activision_video_games That boggles my mind.. That CEO salary seems rather on the high side. I could have told them to "do another CoD" and rummage in the vault.

EA seems to be doing better - there's a few new things in there once you strip out Battlefield, Sims and the Sports stuff - but still.. ..For some reason I'd still thought the big publishers were some massive force of nature, crushing all in their path. We could stand on the side-lines booing their latest monetization strategy, but I'd still considered them to be invincible monsters. I'd imagined I'd see a list of a…

> We could stand on the side-lines booing their latest monetization strategy, but I'd still considered them to be invincible monsters.

I think that's been falling apart for a while now due to fan backlash. Activision has never been very popular, now Blizzard fans have finally gotten the message that they are one and the same, reacting in overblown ways to mobile announcements.

EA struggles from the same reputation issue as Activision. The latest Battlefield was met with quite some hostility and afaik hasn't been doing very well commercially, while the last Mass Effect received luke-warm reception killing the franchise for good.

If it wasn't for that very smart PR move of keeping Apex Legends under wraps, until release, EA would also be in quite some trouble now. Particularly with Anthem underwhelming people everywhere, confirming the notion that whatever made Bioware special, is by now long gone.

Doesn't look that much better at Bethesda with their Fallout 76, after years of taking the fan-goodwill for granted, they've now managed to really piss people off.

Take2 and Ubisoft have mostly managed to pull through unscathed so far, but imho overall this is the result of indie development and publishing having gotten as strong as they are now. Nowadays consumers can choose from a wide selection of very high-quality games, often sold below the usual full-retail price and they've become very aware of it.

If the established big players want to keep their dominance they need to change their course heavily, show actual goodwill instead of constant willingness to exploit every commercial angle available.

Re: Overpaid CEOs 2019

#90

Post by CountSessine »

blattimwind wrote: post #82
CountSessine wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, they often get upside when the company fails (what was Marissa Mayer’s exit package?) Marissa Mayer got a nice compensation package because she did well by Yahoo investors: she managed to trick Verizon into paying real money to buy the hulking wreck of Yahoo. If you start out thinking that Yahoo could ever possibly have been saved in any alternate universe, you can get all-kinds of angry or disappointed in M…

A better example might be Carly Fiorina.

Fiorina's compensation was arranged by a board that everyone acknowledged was hopelessly dysfunctional (see Mark Hurd and the spy scandal).

There's this claim that CEO compensation doesn't correlate well performance. I could see your Carly Fiorina and raise you Steve Jobs or Jack Welch or any other number of anecdotes. What's the real statistical correlation in the S&P 500?

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