Green Dan
United Kingdom
Norwich
Norfolk
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...well not my CEO. The CEO of the Holding company that owns the company, that owns my company.
But if I earned in a single year, what that guy earned last year, and divided that amount into my usual annual salary I could last...
...437.5 years.
and I'm not 'poor'. My partner doesn't work to spend time at home to raise our kid.
Crazy.
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James Mapp
United Kingdom
norwich
Norfolk
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last year (before returning to uni) it took me a year to earn what UEAs director of admissions earns in 2 days...
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Green Dan
United Kingdom
Norwich
Norfolk
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Now how long does it take? 20 minutes?
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James Mapp
United Kingdom
norwich
Norfolk
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i am earning £1300/month now (for being a student), back then it was £240 a month..
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Chad
United States
Unspecified
Unspecified
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How many of you work the hours and have the skills that you CEO has?
I know for a fact that i don't.......
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nothing but static
New Zealand
Unspecified
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I work longer hours, and there is no way on gods green earth he
could do my job.
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Utrecht wrote: How many of you work the hours and have the skills that you CEO has? I know for a fact that i don't.......
He might put in more hours and have more skills. It seems unlikely to me that he has 437.5 years worth of more hours and skills.
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Gary Page
United Kingdom
London
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Dolphinandrew wrote: Utrecht wrote: How many of you work the hours and have the skills that you CEO has? :devil:
I know for a fact that i don't....... He might put in more hours and have more skills. It seems unlikely to me that he has 437.5 years worth of more hours and skills.
As decided by who?
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Green Dan
United Kingdom
Norwich
Norfolk
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Utrecht wrote: How many of you work the hours and have the skills that you CEO has? I know for a fact that i don't.......
Yes, sorry. To put it into context, he does work just over 16 thousand hours a week. That's quite a skill in itself.
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GazPAge wrote: Dolphinandrew wrote: Utrecht wrote: How many of you work the hours and have the skills that you CEO has? I know for a fact that i don't....... He might put in more hours and have more skills. It seems unlikely to me that he has 437.5 years worth of more hours and skills. As decided by who?
Well I suppose in practise, as decided by the CEO. Which I guess is the problem 
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Green Dan
United Kingdom
Norwich
Norfolk
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Maybe he just has a much better union than me.
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James Mapp
United Kingdom
norwich
Norfolk
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Greendan wrote: Maybe he just has a much better union than me.
or maybe (as is the case a lot) he was born into money and/or the company and actually has very little skill at anything other than being able to exploit those below them.
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Gary Page
United Kingdom
London
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femgoth wrote: Greendan wrote: Maybe he just has a much better union than me. or maybe (as is the case a lot) he was born into money and/or the company and actually has very little skill at anything other than being able to exploit those below them.
Shareholders should fire him then and get someone cheaper. Not anyone else's business what he gets paid. If he took an 80% pay cut, that money goes to the shareholders, not the workers.
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Christophe Mallard
Singapore
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Greendan wrote: If I earned what my CEO earned...
I'd be the CEO.
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We're all in this together
United States
Research Triangle Park
North Carolina
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I think of corporate compensation by dividing employees into 3 groups: vision, core, and support.
Vision: the employee's contribution make the company unique. If that employee were to leave it would fundamentally alter the company. Steve Jobs being an excellent example. The pool for these is small, as testing for vision is challenging: these people typically prove themselves by their actions, which can only happen if they were given a chance to demonstrate vision elsewhere. Rewarding tested vision employees can end up being expensive, but not as expensive as the damage a bad vision employee can do to a company.
Core: the employee performs core functions unique to the area in which the product competes. An AI programmer for a video game company, for example. The quality of these employees' contributions can distinguish a company or hurt it, but in smaller measure than vision. Core contributors' competency can be learned, measured, and demonstrated more easily. Losing a core employee can slow down a project, but won't derail the company.
Support: People who do common functions not core to the business. It doesn't mean they aren't highly skilled: just that their contribution won't make or break the company.
I'm a web developer. I'm on the bubble of being a vision contributor within my department, but a support contributor in the context of the company. I could be a vision contributor if I were at a business that was solely web.
Gotta run,but I hope this makes sense.
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If I earned what my CEO earns, I'd have a much better office.
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Chad
United States
Unspecified
Unspecified
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Aetheros said it much better than I did.
and to take my post above futher,
At the end of the day, Aresenal could hire me to be their Striker for considerably less than Robin van Persie makes and I could fill the position - but I would be tremendously less effective than Robin.
Just like Apple could have hired me or you to be CEO instead of Steve Jobs - there is little doubt that Apple would not be where it is today if I was in charge. It takes tremendous skill to run a company well - and I STRONGLY beleive that very few people on this board have the needed skills.
Now, I will not deny that there are CEOs out there that are overpaid and underqualified - but that is an issue between the company, the shareholders and the board.
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Utrecht wrote: Now, I will not deny that there are CEOs out there that are overpaid and underqualified - but that is an issue between the company, the shareholders and the board.
Not really. Or it depends. If some system of board members and shareholders running companies only ends up concentrating money in the hands of people who:
a) Are rich already
and
b) Aren't competent at jobs that have knock on effects on the rest of the economy,
then it's very much an issue we should all be worried about, and try to do something about.
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nothing but static
New Zealand
Unspecified
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Dolphinandrew wrote: Utrecht wrote: Now, I will not deny that there are CEOs out there that are overpaid and underqualified - but that is an issue between the company, the shareholders and the board. Not really. Or it depends. If some system of board members and shareholders running companies only ends up concentrating money in the hands of people who: a) Are rich already and b) Aren't competent at jobs that have knock on effects on the rest of the economy, then it's very much an issue we should all be worried about, and try to do something about.
corporate governance is aimed at increasing the power of
senior executives and the board at the expense of general
shareholders.
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Chad
United States
Unspecified
Unspecified
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OK - so you think that the board/shareholders/etc. will benefit from having an incompetent at the helm and that they try and do that?????
Also, your are suggesting a level of state controlled capitalism that I am quite frankly uncomfortable with (i.e. to big to fail in the US).
But, hey, lets keep up the idea that CEOs are a bunch of overpaid oligarchs who can get replaced with no impact to corporate performance.
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Utrecht wrote: OK - so you think that the board/shareholders/etc. will benefit from having an incompetent at the helm and that they try and do that?????
No, I think shareholders and board members often work in a "you scratch my back..." and old boys network world, where pay is not necessarily connected to performance and more to do with who you know and whether you are in or not.
If someone getting a board membership because his father will give a big contract to some other company that another board member has stakes in leads to knock on effects within that company that cost me my job in a unrelated field (which is not that usual an event, especially if they are about to jump ship and go somewhere else), then of course it's my business. The economy is interconnected.
Capitalism is only good if it works. If non-interference leads to banks being too big to fail, and situations where the government must step in to prevent terrible recessions, then clearly something is going wrong with the system of shareholders and board members. The business world currently rewards "good" short term thinking, and that can be very bad for long term business. But why would shareholders or board members care about the company they were at 3 years ago? Shareholders might have bought and sold their shares 20 times since then, and board members can jump about too.
Some CEOs are good at their jobs. Not all of them are. And that concerns a great deal more people than the board members and shareholder when it comes to the big multi-nationals. There are plenty of ways to make money from a failing company.
You might be uncomfortable with governments interfering with businesses. I don't like it either. But I'm much more uncomfortable with businesses doing whatever they like.
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Green Dan
United Kingdom
Norwich
Norfolk
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Here's another fun little story.
My company is very successful at what we do. In 2007 we got bought out by Company 1 who in turn are owned by the Holding company I mentioned earlier.
Now, after this buy out very little changed day-to-day for us who work at the coal face.
Then about 18 months later we got told we were changing stationery suppliers. We had used the same local supplier for years, they knew us, we knew them. Then we were told we were changing to this very large, very well known (more well known in the States I belive) supplier.
So I did some digging...(amazing what you can find out on the internet).
Turns out about 3 months before we were told to change, a Board member had left the Large Stationery company and joined the board of our Holding Company.
WHAT A COINCEDENCE!
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Bojan Ramadanovic
Canada
Vancouver
BC
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Dolphinandrew wrote: Utrecht wrote: OK - so you think that the board/shareholders/etc. will benefit from having an incompetent at the helm and that they try and do that????? No, I think shareholders and board members often work in a "you scratch my back..." and old boys network world, where pay is not necessarily connected to performance and more to do with who you know and whether you are in or not. If someone getting a board membership because his father will give a big contract to some other company that another board member has stakes in leads to knock on effects within that company that cost me my job in a unrelated field (which is not that usual an event, especially if they are about to jump ship and go somewhere else), then of course it's my business. The economy is interconnected. Capitalism is only good if it works. If non-interference leads to banks being too big to fail, and situations where the government must step in to prevent terrible recessions, then clearly something is going wrong with the system of shareholders and board members. The business world currently rewards "good" short term thinking, and that can be very bad for long term business. But why would shareholders or board members care about the company they were at 3 years ago? Shareholders might have bought and sold their shares 20 times since then, and board members can jump about too. Some CEOs are good at their jobs. Not all of them are. And that concerns a great deal more people than the board members and shareholder when it comes to the big multi-nationals. There are plenty of ways to make money from a failing company. You might be uncomfortable with governments interfering with businesses. I don't like it either. But I'm much more uncomfortable with businesses doing whatever they like.
Shareholders may sell - but for every sell there is a buy. Share buyer is buying into all the bad long-term decisions previous owner signed onto and either demands price cut for that or is silly and hopes to pass the hot-potato to yet another buyer before chickens come home to roost.
I grant, *sometimes* you can fool your customers but sooner or later shareholders will pay for their bad decisions. As a rule - most companies are not run like that because most shareholders are a) not day-traders and b) understand the risks of wrecking the long-term future of the firm for the sake of temporary payout.
Now, it is true that some executives have much more short-termist view but that is standard agency problem and is solved partially by trying to align interests of the executive with that of shareholders but more importantly (and less popular politically) by changing the corporate governance to maximally empower the shareholders.
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bramadan wrote: Shareholders may sell - but for every sell there is a buy. Share buyer is buying into all the bad long-term decisions previous owner signed onto and either demands price cut for that or is silly and hopes to pass the hot-potato to yet another buyer before chickens come home to roost.
Sure, but no shareholder thinks that they are that shareholder who will be left with the hot-potato at the end.
A shareholder knows that someone will be left with the hot potato when everything goes wrong, but if no shareholder think that this will be them, then nothing the shareholders do will encourage long term decision making. At least, not until it's too late.
I'm not saying this always happens, most (big) companies are pretty stable and like it that way. But it certainly does happen, and happens far too much.
bramadan wrote: Now, it is true that some executives have much more short-termist view but that is standard agency problem and is solved partially by trying to align interests of the executive with that of shareholders but more importantly (and less popular politically) by changing the corporate governance to maximally empower the shareholders.
Absolutely. But I think there's also an issue of shareholder culture as well.
Still, my initial point was that this is something we should all be worried about. It's not just an issue between shareholders and board members.
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Greendan wrote: ...well not my CEO. The CEO of the Holding company that owns the company, that owns my company.
But if I earned in a single year, what that guy earned last year, and divided that amount into my usual annual salary I could last...
...437.5 years.
and I'm not 'poor'. My partner doesn't work to spend time at home to raise our kid.
Crazy.
Actually, including interest you could probably live a hell of a lot longer.
Assuming that you earn the mean UK wage of £26,000 (meaning your boss earns approx. £11,375,000)...
We'll assume a low rate of 1%pa.
You could have an income of £113,175 infinitely, never having to touch the capital or work again.
Nice eh?
(note: it is 1am so it's entirely possible that I've FUBAR'd the maths here).
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