this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023

216 points (97.4% liked)

Work Reform

9435 readers

562 users here now

A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.

Our Philosophies:

All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.

Our Goals

Higher wages for underpaid workers.
Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
Better and fewer working hours.
Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

seeCseas

[email protected]

TinMod

216

Top 20 CEO pay in the S&P 500 is disgusting (www.visualcapitalist.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/workreform

38 comments fedilink hide all child comments

If Ryan Cohen took a salary in that leauge the bear thesis would still be alive and the turnaround of GameStop might never happen (or be significantly delayed). My executive chairman has other plans 🙌

all 44 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] notannpc 30 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is also, conveniently, a list of the most egregiously overpaid people in the world. Nothing these CEOs do could possibly be worth what they make.

[–] nickhammes 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There are people taking in millions each year, not for doing the job of running a company, but for owning companies. There's definitely overlap, but I'm not sure the two are the same list

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The comment above wasn't talking about them. He was talking about the CEOs listed here. Time cook makes ~$100m. The company could instead afford to hire ~1000 software developers instead. Is he doing more work than 1000 developers? Certainly not.

[–] nickhammes 0 points 9 months ago

Yeah that's kind of my point, though. I agree Tim Cook doesn't do the work of 1000 developers, but I would suggest he does work comparable to at least 1 developer.

A "list of the most egregiously overpaid people in the world" really should include people who get paid not for doing work, but just owning things. CEOs are certainly egregiously overpaid, but if someone gets paid 1m a year to be a CEO, and someone else gets paid 1m a year for simply owning a company, I would contend the owner is more overpaid than the CEO.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Google ceo making 870 thousand dollars per day. I'm sure he generates more than that in profit personally right

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Their daily revenue is like $200M. Of course revenue isn't profit but still that's less than half of one percent

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

They have more than 200 employees and also expenses

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

My takeaway is "how the hell is Simon in the top 20??" Have you been to a Simon property lately? Shit's dying and their properties are being leased as Amazon distro centers.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Just want to say this based on your comment OP: just be aware that you’re holding a bag for GME at this point. It’s been almost 3 years and it’s now at… $17, which adjusted for pre-split is $68. It’s very unlikely there’ll ever be a squeeze like the Jan 2021 squeeze ever again.

With that out of the way, CEOs are overpaid for work anybody with half a brain can do. All a CEO does is make decisions, and if they’re good, they’d ask the other executive members to do the actual work and analysis. I’m fairly certain you could have an AI take over their jobs and nothing would change at worst - and it’s more likely that it would actually improve some businesses.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I won't be citing sources, sine I am not trying to convince you, but I will say this:

GME did not squeeze in 2021, it was running into a gamma squeeze, but was shut down by the 'removal' of the buy button.

Since then, shorts have not closed and shorting continues on a daily basis.

This year it seems like GameStop will have a profitable year, EPS was very nearly 0 last quarter and will most likely be positive the next.

So yeah, I am not holding bags, I am watching the most entertaining story I have ever seen, live. Shorts have nowhere to hide, they will fight to the last breath since they have no other options. When they can't do that anymore, then we shall have a squeeze. I will be there for it, and you won't.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Oh, trust me, I know: I was an Jan ape and saw that shit live when Robinhood turned off the sell button due to “volatility”. Still technically one since I have one share from when it was around $400 DRS’d, but I had to sell the rest of my shares at a loss recently to pay for some bills and debt earlier this year. I also remember when DFV was absolutely shat on in the WSB subreddit for his GME options plays and saw GME at a negative beta quite a few times too, so not a complete stranger to it like you seem to think I am.

If the Jan 2021 squeeze was the “gamma squeeze” and not The Squeeze, I genuinely think it would have happened at some point in the past couple of years - and at this point, I’m starting to think that it did squeeze back then and now it’s just all hype from bagholders and cryptobros.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I am sorry you had to sell your shares for some bills, that sucks. As for the future, we shall see now won't we? Have a good life internet stanger.

[–] COLT45 4 points 9 months ago

No cell no sell. Apes together strong.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

Hi, I don’t want to butt in on your comment here, but I’m pretty sure Robinhood couldn’t follow the financial regulations and still have the button available at the time because it didn’t have the reserves to be able to fulfil the expected requests. It was a legal issue that caused them to disable trading not malicious intent. Robinhood would have made a fortune on fees so I can’t see why they would have wanted to purposely shoot their own foot on that ground.

But then again, I’m stupid and know nothing so disregard my comment if you so please. Thanks.

[+] Gradually_Adjusting -13 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Executives of large companies should always be paid wholly or mostly in stock and not allowed to hedge. This is the only way to be aligned with any 1%er that I can think of, when their interests and those of the common shareholder are unified.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Why should the shareholders interest even be prioritized. What about customers? Or employees? Or the business itself?

This priority on short term profits for stock price is toxic to functional capitalism.

[–] Gradually_Adjusting 4 points 9 months ago

I agree more than I disagree actually, but the nuance I'd add is that I think share price should be much less of a focus than company profitability and dividends, as the whole point of owning stock is in owning the excess profits. Trading firms have made the markets into a casino while low Fed rates have made actual profitability more of a side quest for most publicly traded companies. Look at Rivian, nearly worth a trillion dollars before they even had full production? Ludicrous speculation at the cost of everything is the main course for most traders.

Aside from discussing the urgent need for market reforms to make sure companies trade more closely to their fundamental value, I spend more of my time worrying about customers and workers as well. We have a nation addicted to literal slavery through the 13th amendment, it's a disgrace. Putting more people in prison is literally in the interest of certain for-profit prison company shareholders. It's sick.

[–] Buffalox 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

OK some priority is reasonable, the company needs to make some money to pay for investments.

But I absolutely agree, why are we rewarding companies that are practically doing con jobs on their customers?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Saint Milton Friedman (bless him) said that the only societal responsibility of a CEO is to increase the wealth of the company's shareholders.

You wouldn't want the CEOs to disobey the sanctified word of Mimil? The shareholders could go broke, and then how would the wealth treacle down? Did you think of this? No, you only think about not starving, you egoistical prole.

[–] Seudo -2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Why should a car owners commute be prioritized... what about disabled? Or downtroden? Or the dealership itself?

This priority on personal vehicals for daily use is toxic to functional transport.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

This priority on personal vehicals for daily use is toxic to functional transport

Unironically yes. Check out Strong Towns.

[–] Shadywack 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What shareholders want isn't what the customers want, what shareholders want isn't what personnel want, what shareholders want isn't what the public wants either.

The shareholders want to fuck the customer, they want to fuck the employees, and they want to fuck the business itself. Fuck the shareholders. They didn't make the business successful, they didn't have the vision that created the value in the first place, they're leeches that ruin the business for short sighted goals.

Fuck the shareholders, and fuck the executives.

[–] Buffalox 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

No, they should be paid wages like everybody else, and also hired and fired like everybody else. The idea that a CEO is some kind of special superstar with talents nobody else have is ridiculous. The current situation is a scheme to help keep the 1% in the 1%.

[–] Gradually_Adjusting 1 points 9 months ago

I'm happy to talk about what should be the case in a perfect world, but what I was talking about here is what sometimes is the case and less bad than usual.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Threy are paid wages like everybody else. And a CEO of a fortune 500 company will have special skills that nobody else has. The skills can be learnt mostly. But at companies this big, a CEO is an asset, a good CEO that can provide more growth and profit than anyone else will command a salary, and the market forces ensure that the salary they earn is inline with how much value they bring to the company.

And these people still pay tax, and a lot of it. It’s not possible to argue that a CEO is overpaid because CEO pay at this level is defined by the Market.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Threy are paid wages like everybody else. And a CEO of a fortune 500 company will have special skills that nobody else has.

You must be disconnected from reality to think like that. What incredible skills do Bezos and Musk have to gain 10000% more than all of their employees combined?

a CEO is an asset

Most businesses thrive despite CEOs, not thanks to them. Worker-owned cooperatives are reliably more stable.

And these people still pay tax, and a lot of it.

Have you heard of the Panama papers?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are different to people like Tim Cook and Satya Nadella. Bezos took a relatively low salary when he was CEO of Amazon, and Musk takes supposedly no salary, because they don’t earn their wealth from a salary. Tim Cook doesn’t need to be more productive than some factory worker in China making 50 iPhones a day, because if paying him $100mn a year makes Apple $110mn a year vs someone else who takes $50k a year and brings Apple $2mn. They still take Cook because the profit is $10mn vs $1.95mn. Like I said, it’s about who can make the most money for the company.

I am very very sceptical about your claim that most businesses thrive without CEOs. Every medium to large company has a CEO, unless it’s a cooperative in which case they have a chair (and in large cooperatives, these chairs still command high salaries). John Lewis, the largest cooperative in the UK, has a chair who earns a salary of £990k.

And finally some people do dodge tax, not everyone does. In 2016, Tim Cook was awarded a $135mn salary, on which he paid $70mn in taxes. What am I supposed to say to this point really? Some people commit tax fraud, it’s still a crime. Maybe it’s not followed as much as it should be, but it’s still illegal.

[+] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What does this mean? Is it not fact that in the capitalist system of the US, the market is a real thing. It’s not just something people say, it is the economy, and economics is based in mathematics (at least they try to base it in mathematics).

[+] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

CEOs of large companies have power because large companies have power, but ultimately the people with the most power are the controlling board members of a company. The board chooses a C level executive’s salary based in what they think that person brings to the table in terms of monetary value, obviously they don’t know for certain, they don’t have a specific number, but for large companies like the ones on this list, it must work pretty well for most of them, or they wouldn’t use this method. Ultimately, the board cares about profit and growth, and they treat the people at the C suite as tools to get that profit. Companies pay a lot of money for something that will make them more money, and so when you think of a CEO as a person you will never be able to justify their compensation, but when you think of them as an object for making profit, you can see how it becomes more justifiable.

[–] shalafi 2 points 9 months ago

Give up. These conversations are dominated by teenagers who are bringing their vast experience working a shit job for an hourly wage.

They think they're making some moral/social outcry against a symptom of capitalism, thinking that if we could just cure the symptom, the disease will improve. (Same people say nothing about athlete's pay, but here we are. LOL, that one used to be a source of public outcry.)

CEOs get these salaries and benefits because the market is willing to pay it, thinks it's a fair deal. There's nothing more to it.

If you have a billion-dollar company, and you want the best leadership, you pay for that. Want some dude who says, "Sure, I can handle it. Only need $250,000/yr. I got this."? Of course not. You want someone with a track record of handling... whatever it is you're hiring for.

Sure, sometimes they fuck up, just like any employer. But do these people think they're smarter than the Alpha board of directors?! Yes they do.

And spare me the, "They don't work 1,000% harder!". Yeah. We know because it's obvious to any simpleton. That's not a point worth making.

And spare me, "The workers should get that money!" Dude was bitching on reddit about American Airlines, their CEO and pay. I did the math. If you stripped him of every penny and spread it around, worked out to $.02/hr. more for each employee.

CEO pay ain't the fucking problem. It's only a symptom of unfettered capitalism.

And one last addition to my rant. :)

Listen: People pay you for what you can do for them. That's how you make money. Hard work barely figures in.

Don't get me started on making social connections. Somehow these people forget we're apes and that sort of thing is important.

[–] Buffalox 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Threy are paid wages like everybody else.

Absolutely not, the wages for most CEOs are almost irrelevant, the major income for most is from stock, where they are regularly given stock, and have cheap stock options on top of that.

What I'm stating is that they should be paid according to their actual skill set, like other workers. That is according to their education and experience. And not fantastic amounts hundreds or even thousands times more than normal workers. There is no way one person can realistically be worth 100 times a normal worker. CEO is not a unique skillset, which is evident from the fact that most CEOs come from sales. The same place you also get your best con men. Sorry I hope no offense to hardworking salespeople out there.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

You know income from stocks is still taxed as income. Everything you said in the first paragraph is still taxed as income.

You may be right in your second paragraph, but in the capitalist economy these companies operate in, that won’t happen, because like I’ve said before, a CEO is paid according to how much additional profit and growth they can bring to the table. At that level it’s not about technical skill but about leadership and forward thinking.

And I do think that a CEO can justifiably earn a lot more than an average worker, especially at a large company because of the personal risk and responsibility that comes with the job role. But only in some cases. Obviously the CEO of shell is not putting themself under more personal risk than the high pressure underwater welder, not by a long shot. And they are probably still paid 50x their salary at least. In a capitalist system, the ones who bring the most value and take the most risk are rewarded the most, that’s just how it is. Is it just? That’s for the individual to decide, but that’s just how it is.

[–] shalafi 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I disagree with much here, but maybe you're onto something with the stock option thing. It would have to be legislated, and the devil's details are legion, but what if?

What if we said, "Your company profits/grosses >$X, then you can't offer executive stock options." Again, devilish details, and it's not realistically passable legislation. But what if major CEOs were thereby forced to look past the next quarter?

I work for a software dev, only 130 of us. Our CEO reports to a board of directors and will tell them quick, "We expect to lose money next year because we're investing in personnel and dialing in tech debt." And it works and the board loves it. (I know this because he shares such things in front of the whole company, every month. And shows us the numbers.)

Crazy thing? Because of his forward thinking, we keep making more money, even when we expect to lose. Nuts how that works out. :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Don’t they get massive RSUs on top of the obscene salary?

[–] Gradually_Adjusting 2 points 9 months ago

Yes, but RSUs aren't actually stocks, and I don't think of them as a very effective way of unifying the interests of an RSU holder with the shareholder per se.

Restricted Stock Units, also called RSUs, are not stock. When RSUs are granted, no share certificates are issued. The executive actually owns nothing. RSUs are not restricted stock. There are no shares then issued that are subject to forfeiture. Again, no stock is issued, restricted or otherwise. Nor are RSUs options. There is no strike price. No company commitment to sell the executive shares once they vest. So, what are RSUs? RSUs are restricted stock units that represent a company’s promise to issue to you shares of the company’s stock or to pay you the cash value of that company stock, at some date in the future. The company enters a contract with you that if the conditions of the contract are met, you will then get stock or the cash equivalent. Thus, one RSU equals the right to receive one share of the company’s common stock at a later time, or the right to receive the cash value of one share of the company’s common stock at a later time. The number of RSUs you are granted tells you how many shares of stock (or the number of shares of stock used to determine your cash payment) you will receive when they are “settled.”

Source: https://ceoworld.biz/2017/02/28/advantage-rsus-ceo-compensation-package/