
Equifax CEO Richard Smith Who Oversaw Breach to Collect $90M - rmason
http://fortune.com/2017/09/26/equifax-ceo-richard-smith-net-worth/
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dogruck
For all the people who scream at this as unjust -- what do you propose
instead?

I know your knee-jerk is "pay him $0!"

But seriously. If you were on their board. You disregard his employment
contract? You don't honor contracts? You make a huge scene and have the CEO
exit furiously?

And, you do realize the CEO didn't _actively_ facilitate the breech?

I'm not defending him, but what would you really suggest?

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Aaargh20318
> And, you do realize the CEO didn't actively facilitate the breech?

As CEO he is responsible for his company. If a breech happens, it’s because he
mismanaged it. They take home huge salaries, stock options and other forms of
compensation, supposedly because their job carries so much responsibility,
then he should also take responsibility when the shit hits the fan. Not only
should he not get a cent, every single dollar that the company loses as a
result of this should be recovered from him. Bankrupt the fucker and have him
live the rest of his days in a box under a bridge.

You cannot claim ridiculous amounts of money because of your responsible job
and then not be held responsible.

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dogruck
I agree that he is responsible. But his contract doesn't read, "if any big bad
thing happens, we pay you $0!"

That would surely be a great contract, but they would have a tough time hiring
a CEO.

By analysis, every landlord should put a "if anything really bad happens at
this property, you are fully responsible."

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Aaargh20318
> "if any big bad thing happens, we pay you $0!"

No, it should read 'if big bad things happen, you pay us the damages'.

The question is simple: Is the CEO (directly or indirectly) responsible for
how the company operates ? If (s)he is, then it's fair (s)he gets a decent
bonus when the company does well, but that would also mean they are
responsible when everything goes south, and then they should pay for the
damage. Otherwise they can basically take huge risks with the company in the
hope they score a big bonus, and there will be no consequences when it goes
tits up.

You cannot only be responsible when things go well, that's not how
responsibility works.

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jusaduder
> _No, it should read 'if big bad things happen, you pay us the damages'._

It would be utterly ridiculous for any person to sign a contract that said "In
the event this company gets hacked, you a personally liable." I wouldn't, and
you wouldn't either.

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Aaargh20318
That's fine, but then you get a normal salary.

If you claim you are responsible for the performance of the company, that goes
both ways. You can't claim responsibility ONLY when things go well (and rake
in large amounts of cash) and then when things go to shit suddenly act like
you had nothing to do with it.

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dogruck
Such a contract would attract charlatains -- guys like Bernie Madoff. And
then, when they found a data breech, they'd pull every trick to keep it
hidden.

No doubt that CEOs should be held responsible. And here the board would say,
yes, that's why we fired him.

~~~
Aaargh20318
> Such a contract would attract charlatains

No it wouldn't. The current contracts do that. The CEO can basically take huge
risks with the company at zero personal risk. If it pans out, he gets a huge
bonus, if it fails he bails out with a huge severance package and no personal
consequences.

It's the same mechanism that got us into the financial crisis. Executives have
every reason to take huge risks and none to play it safe.

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Top19
A big problem with modern capitalism is that there is hardly any risk anymore.
Risk is like a rocket ship that has left Earth, gone out of the solar system,
and is not present on or near the planet anymore.

Your stock can drop 20% in a week, you can oversee the largest theft of
valuable information ever recorded in history, and really the only thing that
can happen to you is you make just as much money, perhaps more, if none of
those things happened.

Can’t wait until the “Steve Bannon” of the corporate justice movement emerges
to go after these individuals / the structure that creates them.

~~~
badosu
> _Can’t wait until the “Steve Bannon” of the corporate justice movement
> emerges to go after these individuals / the structure that creates them._

I'm sorry to sidetrack on this, but I was really puzzled by this sentence,
that does it mean?

~~~
Top19
Steve Bannon is kind of known for having a “hit list” within the political
establishment. So first it was the Bush’s/Clinton’s, then it was the Koch
Brothers, and now he is saying “the day of reckoning” is coming for Karl Rove
and Mitch McConnell. Sometimes I think Steve Bannon is crazy, but other times
I read his remarks and am shocked by how liberal some of them seem, e.g. his
recent comment that Republican plan of tax cuts to the rich is “an economic
hate crime” against the working class.

~~~
lstyls
Liberal? Have you read Breitbart? Bannon has ideas about class and economy
that support egalitarianism - if you're a Christian, support old-school
western cultural values, and are white. Apart from a few populist notions I
don't think there's anything about Bannon that could be called "liberal".

~~~
nindalf
I force myself to read Breitbart now and then, to understand what people with
different views are thinking. What you've said is accurate. At the same time,
Bannon displays intelligence and straight talk at times. For example, when
tensions with NK started to heat up, he called Trump's "fire and fury" threat
toothless because any opening of hostilities with NK sees 4 million+ residents
of Seoul die within 48 hours. He was "telling it like it is", and he was fired
from the White House immediately after. Now I don't agree with most of what he
says but I can see how his followers admire his plainspokenness.

~~~
lstyls
Totally agree with you here, I think I could have made my point better. He has
a consistent ideology and sticks to his guns to be sure. What I meant was he
is not liberal in the classical economic sense, nor in the American social
sense.

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caseysoftware
> "After all, the main benefit of Smith retiring from Equifax, as opposed to
> being fired for cause—besides preserving his dignity—is that he'll get to
> continue earning his unvested stock compensation, including options and
> performance-based awards, as though he were still working at the company,
> according to Equifax policy. That perk, however, could still be revoked."

Generally when you leave a company your vesting stops. This is such a sweet
deal, it's disgusting. They should have fired him for gross negligence and sue
the lot of them.

(I know, they're probably thoroughly protected by corp vs individual status,
layers of bureaucracy, etc, etc but it makes me feel good saying "sue the
bastards!" so let me. ;) )

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nindalf
I think the issue here is that Equifax's systems are in a bad way. They need a
new CEO but if they left the current one in the cold, they'd have a hard time
finding a new CEO who'd be willing to bear ultimate responsibility for a
system they had 0 influence in building. I believe that's the deal with golden
parachutes - in the eyes of corporations, there are very few qualified CEO
candidates and these candidates dictate terms - the first of which is a golden
parachute.

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abakker
One wonders what 90m in security spending would have accomplished...

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ajobaccount2017
When corporations behave in evil ways (e.g. exploit users, sue independent
engineers extending their products, etc.) there is often a mention of
shareholder interests making them do this.

Where exactly are shareholder interests in this story?

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dingo_bat
So as a CEO, what is his motivation to ensure the security of his custommer's
data? This seems like a motivation to get hacked!

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tim333
I guess that's just how it works in present day capitalism though there might
be a gap for some new laws and court system that could assess damage to the
public and fine the directors something based on a guess of their
responsibility even if you can't really prove who's fault things were. I doubt
the odd injustice of someone not quite guilty losing a chunk of their assets
would worry people that much. Like in this case you could fine the ceo say
$90m even if he only has part responsibility for the breach.

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thegayngler
He shouldn't get anything. He costed Equifax lots of money. His handling is
going to have Equifax hundreds of millions of dollars going forward.

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vfulco
The risk is all borne on the little people. If strategic direction is an
abject failure, C-suite leaves with golden parachutes and the workforce is
"rationalized" which means 3rd party consultants are used as justification for
draconian cuts. The American Dream these days is to get to the protection (and
unjust/unfair risk-free status) of the C-suite umbrella asap.

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partycoder
A rigged game where if you lose, you win.

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spiketechman
About $53 million short if you ask me..

