http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-5618069.html
Apple Computer's board said that the company's highest executives are underpaid and in need of a cash bonus program.
And in other news:
Steve Jobs Gets $1 Salary for 2004
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2005-03-15T194245Z_01_N15211152_RTRIDST_0_TECH-TECH-APPLE-CEO-DC.XML
Let's look at just one fellow: vice president Tim Cook. Receives a salary of $600,000 and $7.65 million in stock.
Just how many full-time engineers could that employ for a year? You're telling me an executive vice-president is more productive than an entire division of engineers?
Of course, Apple arguably has to compete for executive talent, but I think there are serious issues in any industry where a single person earns more than an entire division of the real wealth-producers of a company.
$100,000-$300,000. Okay. But nobody is worth a few million. I can almost guarantee you that Tim Cook could be replaced by some random educated fool and on average it would make little difference.
I rather appreciate the sentiment of accepting an annual salary of $1. If wealth is to be a base motivator, stuffing someone's face full of cash isn't going to make them work any harder than a minimum wage employee. More optimistic, perhaps, but not harder working.
Hinging their very survival on the company's perceived worth, by paying in stocks instead of cash, should have more of a proactive effect.
...but bears the danger of artificial stock inflation and insider trading enormously, which has never been uncommon in the past (shareholder value through the stratosphere, while the company really is a carious heap of deficit and "sexed up" balances).
Yes it would. Put in a nobody in the position; and share owners get a bit nervous, and shares and sales get a bit shaky. Put an idiot in the position, and it all goes sour. Put someone who is liked and can do the job: shares go up, sales go up.
I think Job's $1 salary is a publicicty thing, as it been conveyed about how much than man has done for the company, yet he suppositely gets screwed only getting $1 a year. Let us not forget just how much he would receive in company extras; flights, meals, and no one mentioned the all-important company bonuses, of which I'm sure even Apple distribute once in a while.