Steve Jobs tops list for California CEO compensation

[Doctor Q]

It's Still a Golden State (free L.A. Times subscription may be required)

The Los Angeles Times surveyed CEO compensation at the 100 largest publicly traded companies in California. Number one was Steve Jobs, with 2003 compensation of $74.75 million.

1. Steve Jobs, Apple Computer, $74.75 million
2. Meg Whitman, EBay, Inc., $42.73 million
3. John Chambers, Cisco Systems, Inc., $38.64 million
4. Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide Financial, $35.22 million
5. Ray Irani, Occidental Petroleum Corp., $30.78 million
6. Stepehn Bennett, Intuit Inc., $28.2 million
7. Bruce Karatz, KB Home, $28.19 million
8. Van Honeycutt, Computer Sciences Corp., $22.97 million
9. Robert Glynn Jr., PG&E Corp., $20.65 million
10. Richard Kovacevich, Wells Fargo & Co., $20 million
​

From Big paychecks still the rule in the CEO's suite (stamfordadvocate.com):

Apple Computer Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs canceled most of his options but received $74.7 million in restricted stock to go with his $1 salary.

Gee, I'm still working on my first million! And note, here's a hilarious coincidence. I have iTunes on Shuffle, and I just noticed it is playing Pink Floyd's "Money" as I type this post!

 

[raynegus]

New car, caviar, four star daydream. Think I’ll buy me a football team.

 

[stoid]

All these people with their millions of dollars, and I can't seem to find the few pitiful thousand I need for college.

 

[wdlove]

"If they don't figure out just how angry the American people are . . . there will be legislation," he said.

This a very telling statement. The pay of upper management is just completely out of reality with what the main stream worker makes.

 

[LaMerVipere]

Steve Jobs' Gulfstream V

Here's a couple photos of Steve Jobs' Gulfstream V for anyone interested, bought for him by Apple Computer. His is exactly like the one owned by his buddy, CEO of Oracle, Larry Ellison. Oh to be Steve Jobs...*sigh*

this is his actual plane btw, not just photos of any 'ol Gulfstream V

 

[raynegus]

Anyone know what the number is for Gates? That is the one to get disgusted over, if any.

 

[Doctor Q]

I have no idea what fair compensation for CEOs should be, but i think Steve Jobs does more for his earnings than CEOs of a lot of other companies. He's in such a fast-moving fast-changing business at the intersection of so many facets of life and technology. He must have so many big decisions to make day by day that not many people could do it, running a nuts and bolts business, keeping their heads above the water, and being an industry visionary at the same time!

 

[ingenious]

"If they don't figure out just how angry the American people are . . . there will be legislation," he said.

This a very telling statement. The pay of upper management is just completely out of reality with what the main stream worker makes.

Are you seriously suggesting that a CEO and an intern should make the same amount of money and get the same benefits? ROFTL! We have no idea the amount of stress that CEOs go through daily. Seems to me all you're worried about is making more money for yourself.

 

[jaw04005]

Seems to me all you're worried about is making more money for yourself.

LOL, you are 14. You are making statements like this to a retired veteran? Someday you will be in the work environment, and know how it feels to be under compensated.

 

[LaMerVipere]

LOL, you are 14. You are making statements like this to a retired veteran? Someday you will be in the work environment, and know how it feels to be under compensated.

LOL I rarely say this, but caleb...treeeeeeeeeeeated.

aaand i'm through

 

[plus_c]

"If they don't figure out just how angry the American people are . . . there will be legislation," he said.

This a very telling statement. The pay of upper management is just completely out of reality with what the main stream worker makes.

Yes, but compare the duties of a mainstream worker and a CEO. Their job descriptions are quite different, are they not? A CEO is involved in policy decisions that could eventually either double the company's profit, or bankrupt it. If a CEO performs well, then shouldn't he be rewarded for that performance?

Granted, there are CEO's with very excessive pay packages (Dick Grasso comes to mind), but there aren't many CEOs that can claim to having presided over a turnaround as successful as Apple's, and so I think Jobs' salary is justified.

 

[kidA]

people, all love you are completely misunderstanding wdlove's statement. he said:

The pay of upper management is just completely out of reality with what the main stream worker makes.

you are all suggesting that he said that CEOs and interns should make the same amount of money. no where in that sentence is that even implied. how you arrived at this interpretation must be some sort of confused thinking. where did you get that? think about it for a second, but you really shouldn't have to. all the statement means is that CEO salaries are disproportionately large compared to mainstream worker salaries. he said that upper management pay is "out of reality with mainstream worker" pay. out of reality doesn't mean they should be equal. it means that realistically, a CEO should make more money than mainstream workers, but not that much more. its true that being a CEO is very demanding and time consuming. but is it worth $70,000,000 a year? maybe the CEO should make 10x or 100x what the mainstream worker makes. but the mainstream worker does NOT make $7,000,000 or $700,000, or even $70,000. CEO salaries are disproportionately large. if the company has that much money kicking around, there are plenty of things that would be far better for the company than cutting the check to the CEO: raise employee pay for the year through bonuses (you might not want to actually raise salaries because you don't ever want to have to cut them if next year is not as good as this, but that's a discussion for another time) or create an in-house pension program for them, put the money to social causes, or plow it back in to the company and use it to become even better (the uneducated believe that companies don't do this because it makes them have to pay more taxes, which, while true, is entirely incorrect and misleading--if you bring $50 million back, and in so doing raise your taxes by $20 million, you still brought $30 million of liquid assets back into the company). CEO salaries are inflated. $70,000,000? that's insane.

 

[Doctor Q]

Doesn't supply and demand determine the average CEO compensation over the long term, individual aberrations aside? If it takes $25, $50, or $75 million to keep the CEO you want, isn't he/she worth it by definition?

 

[virividox]

mannnnnnn thats a sweet deal but imagine all the stuff he has to do!!

 

[wdlove]

Are you seriously suggesting that a CEO and an intern should make the same amount of money and get the same benefits? ROFTL! We have no idea the amount of stress that CEOs go through daily. Seems to me all you're worried about is making more money for yourself.

If you want to talk about stress then you can find it easily on the front lines of medicine, policeman, and fireman. Daily they make life and death decisions. A CEO only makes decisions regarding money, no lives are on the line. They set policy.

The discrepancy is currently just too great. Our president is a CEO and he also makes life and death decisions everyday. That goes for any president, so it is not political.

 

[Edot]

Hmm..

If you want to talk about stress then you can find it easily on the front lines of medicine, policeman, and fireman. Daily they make life and death decisions. A CEO only makes decisions regarding money, no lives are on the line. They set policy.

The discrepancy is currently just too great. Our president is a CEO and he also makes life and death decisions everyday. That goes for any president, so it is not political.

If honor and respect are truly the important factors of life, then why do you care at all how much money Steve Jobs is making? Knowing a little about the man, I don't think the money really matters to him at all. If Apple wants to buy him a jet then that is their decision. I am not saying that there may be better ways to spend the money, but that is the capitalistic nature of this country. If anyone really has strong feelings about it, then run for public office and do something about it. I don't see anywhere that Steve is demanding this kind of compensation from the company. Some people make a lot of money because of timing and risk.

 

[danbirchall]

$74.75 million...

...in stock. Which, if he runs the company into the ground, is worth a big fat $0 million.

If that stock can't be converted to cash *right now* it serves as a good incentive for Steve to make sure the company does well, so there's cash left to convert it to down the road.

 

[Koodauw]

If you want to talk about stress then you can find it easily on the front lines of medicine, policeman, and fireman. Daily they make life and death decisions. A CEO only makes decisions regarding money, no lives are on the line. They set policy.

The discrepancy is currently just too great.

Here comes the holier-than-though arguement

America: Where you can strike it rich, or freely complain when you don't.

And I would have to agree, if it takes 74 mill to keep Steve, than thats what he is worth.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Doesn't supply and demand determine the average CEO compensation over the long term, individual aberrations aside? If it takes $25, $50, or $75 million to keep the CEO you want, isn't he/she worth it by definition?

I agree as long as you don't pay the CEO so much that you can't keep/attract enough qualified people to execute the CEO's vision. Unfortunetly today's job market greatly favors the employers and not the employees (who are usually thankful to have a job even if they are getting the short end of the stick).


Lethal

 

[kuyu]

...in stock. Which, if he runs the company into the ground, is worth a big fat $0 million.

If that stock can't be converted to cash *right now* it serves as a good incentive for Steve to make sure the company does well, so there's cash left to convert it to down the road.

Glad somebody said it. Jobs only makes a buck a year. All the rest are stock OPTIONS (many of which he declined). For those who don't know, Jobs is allowed to buy X amount of shares at a fixed price, which is usually close to the market price. If he runs the company well, the market price will rise, thus making him TONS of money. That's why they call them incentives. If Jobs made $250,000 like some people propose, he wouldn't care if Apple sank or not.

Thus, he had to spend his own money to make the millions. Would anybody care if I made $75 million in the stock market with my own money? How many of us have to lay down hundreds of MILLIONS of our own cash in order to get paid? I'd say very few of us.

Imagine this at a Joe Job:
"Yes, we've decided to give you a raise. It may be in excess of $100,000. However, you do need to give us $75,000 first, and you can't sell the stock for 180 days. We're sorry, but that's how it works. Oh yeah, you may lose the entire $75,000. No, we cannot reemburse you if that happens."

 

[kuyu]

Oh yeah...

How many of us in food/retail get discounts at work? That's all Jobs gets, a discount on Apple stock. He then can sell it for a profit, but only if the company is doing well.

When Apple's stock price dropped, he lost millions. It's risky, that's why it's so much money.

I use my work discount all the time. In fact, I've turned a profit on it (like $0.50, but a profit). Jobs does this, only he does it 100,000,000 times.

 

[radhak]

There are many ways of looking at compensation and their justifications.
A CEO has to be many things at the same time, take responsibility for multiple facets of the company. Jobs, for example, is the final arbiter for Apple's Designs, its Marketing Strategy, its vision, overall Quality (without knowing him personally, i suspect he must be anal about the quality of any product coming out of his stable; a pain to work for, i am sure, but a boon for us, the consumers) and many more.

So if you assume a good product design architect in a major organization earns (say) $100K, and similar salary for each of the other roles, you have one person capable of essaying around 10 such varying roles, should earn around $1 Million (i am oversimplifying, of course). And given the demand-and-supply of such people, one could make that 10 times, ie a salary of $10 million. Going anywhere over that seems to be plain greed, nothing else.

I have heard comments that 'if the company wishes to pay so much, why should anybody else complain?'. That ignores the fact that most of these companies are publicly held, and the company is answerable to the shareholders. I wonder how many CEOs would be okay about their Shareholders voting on their compensation?

That said, Steve Jobs is totally compensated in stocks. As already mentioned by others, this is a very risky 'incentive' for the person concerned, and clearly indicates that Steve is in this for the love of Apple and its products. So my arguments above don't apply to him at all. On the other hand, the link below gives you the list of the highest paid CEOs listed by Forbes. The top guy there, Reuben Mark of Colgate Palmolive earned $147 Million last year, and a total of more than a quarter billion dollars in the past 5 years. That would take some justification...

Forbes List

if you scroll down and type 'Jobs' in the search, you get Steve's record, which is Zero compensation. for more details, check out his personal data. Almost a saint, i think, when you see that his compensation from Pixar as CEO was a mere $52! I had to read that twice to be sure of that figure

Of course, since we are ever interested in comparison, here is Bill Gates; a gross total of $865,114 including bonus, and absolutely no stock at all. pretty humble, i think.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

<snip> Steve Jobs is totally compensated in stocks. As already mentioned by others, this is a very risky 'incentive' for the person concerned, and clearly indicates that Steve is in this for the love of Apple and its products. So my arguments above don't apply to him at all. <snip>

That's typical Steve Jobs. He likes to take risks, especially when it comes to new Apple products. I can understand why he's compensated in stock, since that's they way he likes things to be - risky.

 

[pjkelnhofer]

Doesn't supply and demand determine the average CEO compensation over the long term, individual aberrations aside? If it takes $25, $50, or $75 million to keep the CEO you want, isn't he/she worth it by definition?

Thank you Doctor Q for making sense. The problem is that this is what you have to pay to get a decent CEO since there are other companies willing to pay it. Think of it like sports, CEO's are worth whatever the company thinks it will take to keep them from leaving. I don't think you want the kind of CEO that $50k, $100k or even $250k gross compensation would buy running Apple.

 

[topicolo]

Thank you Doctor Q for making sense. The problem is that this is what you have to pay to get a decent CEO since there are other companies willing to pay it. Think of it like sports, CEO's are worth whatever the company thinks it will take to keep them from leaving. I don't think you want the kind of CEO that $50k, $100k or even $250k gross compensation would buy running Apple.

Of course, that leaves Apple with $74.75 Million left over to buy more talent.