

The Decade’s Biggest Bonuses (Surprise: No.1 is not from Wall St) - vincentchan
http://www.cnbc.com/id/33534042/

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toby
Steve Job's bonus may have been $43 million, but John Paulson made $3.7
billion in 2007 -- it's not an executive bonus, but I think that excessive
compensation, regardless of structure, is what people get annoyed about.

These results are technically accurate, in that they cover "named executives
for companies in the Russell 3000", but I think they're a bit misleading
because (1) most hedge funds are not listed companies and (2) traders who get
massive performance bonuses are typically not executives.

EDIT: "hedge funds are _not_ listed companies"

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dataman85
Exactly. Top hedge fund managers regularly make over a billion every year.
Even last year, with the stock market meltdown, the 25 top earners made more
than $11 billion.

[http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/25/markets/hedge_alpha/index.ht...](http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/25/markets/hedge_alpha/index.htm)

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BigStartups
And #1 on the list is a well deserved bonus too.

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maudineormsby
Is this why people complain about the bonuses paid to bank executives, but not
to people like Jobs?

It's apparent that Jobs has done a lot of hard work and made Apple successful,
but banking is a black box to most people. I think there's a perception that
banking execs go abuse the massive resources that their institutions possess
to screw over other people, and get a bonus for it at the end of the day.

And maybe they do, but I suspect that there's a lot more to their jobs than
that. And if their companies succeed, why shouldn't they be compensated? If
the board is stupid enough to pay them such obscene amounts of money, then
they'd be stupid not to take it.

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bilbo0s
The issue with banking bonuses is not that they are large, it is that they are
given without regard to whether or not the short term success that gives rise
to the bonus will result in long term distress for the bank. These
externalities are particularly salient the larger the financial institution.
You see those 'massive resources that their institutions possess...' belong,
generally speaking, to others. Teachers and police officers, grocers and
elderly women.

When financial institutions stumble in a long term sense, it directly affects
the future financial security of millions of people. Taxpayers are then liable
for large sums of the, essentially, pilfered resources. Police are public
employees, their pensions have to be paid when the time comes regardless of
how badly their pension fund has been raided. Ditto for teachers. And so on
and so forth.

We should start thinking of CEOs as individuals who have been tasked with
stewarding some amount of wealth, rather than individuals tasked with the
running of a company. This is because Apple represents USD216 Billion in
wealth. This wealth needs to be well managed, or there will be repercussions
in the future.

I don't know, that's just my two cents.

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anamax
> Police are public employees, their pensions have to be paid when the time
> comes regardless of how badly their pension fund has been raided. Ditto for
> teachers. And so on and so forth.

You write that like it's a law of physics or something. It isn't. There's
absolutely no reason why public employees can retire using 401(k)s and the
like. In fact, a lot of them do get much of their retirement benefits from
403(b)s, which are basically the same as 401(k)s.

In fact, pension funds, both public and private, are a huge mistake because
underfunding and raiding can be, and is, hidden for decades.

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kqr2
_Spoiler Alert_ just in case you don't want to click through the slide show.

1\. Steve Jobs

Bonus: $43,511,534

Year: 2001

Company: Apple

Title: CEO

Current Position @ Company: CEO

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camccann
Slideshows using Flash are one of the worst ideas ever. To spare everyone else
the pain:

/!\ _Extended spoiler alert_ /!\

10 (Tied): Gary D. Cohn, Goldman Sachs, Jon Winkelried, Goldman Sachs

9: Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman Sachs

8: Sanford I. Weill, Citigroup

7: Sheldon G. Adelson, Las Vegas Sands

6: Robert I. Toll, Toll Brothers

5: Lawrence J. Lasser, Marsh & McLennan Companies

4: Milan Panic, Valeant Pharmaceuticals

3: Eugene M. Isenberg, Nabors Industries

2: Bob R. Simpson, XTO Energy

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halo
The majority of them aren't in banking...

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mkfort
6/11 would be a majority

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redorb
wow these numbers are amazing; Its hard to believe these men are worth the
20-30mm bonuses they received; then I saw the #1 (jobs) and thought / hmmmm I
think he was instrumental in Apple's turn around so perhaps he was worth it...

Its just hard to say 1 person is worth 30mm in bonuses / but I guess
capitalism disagrees.

edit: Also my thoughts were mostly conceived after I asked myself "How many
people at these companies are underpaid and might leave because of such
underpayment while these guys are perhaps overpaid and how will that affect
the company's future"

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forinti
I think it has a lot more to do with the power structure. These people have
learned to use the companies for their own benefit, probably because the
owners' power is diffuse.

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Readmore
GO STEVE GO!

