Before jumping to the conclusion that the author is hoping you jump to, question: is it possible that he, you, and I don’t have a full view of the rare personality traits and skills that are required to be an effective Fortune 50 CEO?
I assume most of us here are in favor for exchanging money for value (versus time contributed)? Correct? Otherwise, how is a $200k SW engineer’s salary justifiable compared to a $30k fast food worker’s? In the same 40 hour work week?
I do take issue with non-founding CEOs [sometimes] having no skin in the game. I saw this when I was at BlackBerry. Win or lose, the CEO that replaced the founders would win. BlackBerry lost, he didn’t. This seems like a misalignment of incentives, but that’s up to the company to address, not me, and hopefully not the government. If the company gets the incentives wrong, they lose, and hopefully we learn.
Back to the point: if a company has an impact on billions of dollars and millions of lives, I’d prefer their leader be paid well. But my preference is irrelevant here because a company can and should decide how to value that person’s role. In contrast, I certainly wouldn’t want a government policy (and it’s guaranteed slew of unintended consequences) regulating how much a chief executive is paid.
Being an effective CEO is anything but easy. And the combination of an effective CEO’s skills and experience are extraordinarily rare. It’s not a surprise that the market prices their value accordingly.
I assume most of us here are in favor for exchanging money for value (versus time contributed)? Correct? Otherwise, how is a $200k SW engineer’s salary justifiable compared to a $30k fast food worker’s? In the same 40 hour work week?
I do take issue with non-founding CEOs [sometimes] having no skin in the game. I saw this when I was at BlackBerry. Win or lose, the CEO that replaced the founders would win. BlackBerry lost, he didn’t. This seems like a misalignment of incentives, but that’s up to the company to address, not me, and hopefully not the government. If the company gets the incentives wrong, they lose, and hopefully we learn.
Back to the point: if a company has an impact on billions of dollars and millions of lives, I’d prefer their leader be paid well. But my preference is irrelevant here because a company can and should decide how to value that person’s role. In contrast, I certainly wouldn’t want a government policy (and it’s guaranteed slew of unintended consequences) regulating how much a chief executive is paid.
Being an effective CEO is anything but easy. And the combination of an effective CEO’s skills and experience are extraordinarily rare. It’s not a surprise that the market prices their value accordingly.