Comments
Big Rewards SHOULD equal Big Expectations
I became increasingly agitated as I heard news about the big car company execs who cut their salaries to $1 a year… After withdrawing many millions in salaries for the past few years and not to mention the bonuses they will probably pay themselves regardless.
Marie-Claire appears to agree with how I believed the way the world worked:
If you are a CEO, you have to EARN the big bucks.
I have no problem whatsoever with massive salaries. If one person can contribute that much value to a business, they deserve to be rewarded.
But when they DON’T add that value, and drive the company into the ground… They should GIVE THE MONEY BACK (I would say ‘not take it in the first place’, but these people appear to pay themselves in advance) AND they should be fired.
I am wondering if we have moved into a parallel universe. If you are a CEO and you make a habit of letting companies go to the dogs, you should NOT BE A CEO. I’ve even seen this on a smaller scale, with people who are clearly not CEO material being given numerous breaks, and CEO style salaries… while doing a continuously bad job running the ship.
It’s plain stupid that we now expect salaries to be dis-jointed from performance. The label ‘CEO’ alone does not justify a salary.
Hello, my name is Natalie, I have a business called 
January 26th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
To be fair … serial failure CEOs don’t get to hire themselves at their new company.
January 26th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
I don’t even think they need to be serial failures. My understanding is that at that level you need to be able to back yourself enough to say “I will get paid what I’m worth”.
I just don’t think it’s fair that CEO’s bask in the limelight when they do well, but are also able to take their money and keep a low profile when they turn everything to custard.
I’m all for the limelight but think you need to have the other side there too.
January 26th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Couldnt agree more, CEO’s should be paid and re-imbursed on performance and there is only one measure of that. Return on investment. i.e Money. You cant pay investors with pageviews (see this article: http://uncov.com/layoffs-digg-are-about-more-just-cost-cutting)
January 27th, 2009 at 9:01 am
ha ha my fav part:
“Where’s that $60 million now? Stoking the hype only ensured that the tech media would have more shit to write about. In this perspective, Digg could do no wrong. Digg didn’t need to be a business, it just had so many users that it could continue to raise money forever without consequence. Party on.”
January 28th, 2009 at 8:45 am
New Zealand’s abysmal record in this area is an example of what not to do, but it shouldn’t just be the CEOs we take to task!
Look at the composition of some of the boards of ‘big’ businesses in NZ and you will see a ‘mates club’ that defies belief. An old friend in the UK, who has been a ‘professional director’ for the last 10 years, insists that being a chairman takes 2 days per week, and being a director at least six hours a week; in other words he thinks being chair of one and director of three more is as much as he can handle (you should be aware he was chairman of Beecham’s International at the ripe old age of 29, and so now at 62 has a bit of a perspective on this stuff!).
We have people in New ZEaland who sit of over eight boards, most of them with at least one ‘colleague’ in common. When the company goes to sh1 t, the board tend to dump the CEO and pay themselves additional ‘consulting’ fees to ‘sort it out’. An example – Just look at Telecom, where the CEO who bought AAPT was the Chairman who wrote off $2 BILLION in shareholder value, and wen’t on to be the chairman who has seen shareholder value plunge in three other listed companies. Just look at his ‘croney’ list!