Facebook Details Executive Salaries, Bonuses 168
An anonymous reader writes "Facebook has detailed the pay of 27-year-old Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg as well as four other executives. These are people who are set to be billionaires at least on paper when the company goes public as part of its $5 billion initial public offering (IPO). All five individuals are in line for annual target bonuses of 45 percent of their salary plus other base wages. For Zuckerberg, the bonus could amount to roughly $225,000 this year, based on his annual salary of $500,000."
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I don't want to know (Score:1)
Period.
Their "low" salaries are concerning... (Score:5, Funny)
FTFA "These salaries of course don’t take into account the executives’ stocks in the social networking giant. If you were worried their salaries are on the low side, don’t be."
Oh thank god! I can finally sleep easy tonight. Phew!
Re:Their "low" salaries are concerning... (Score:4, Funny)
Okay now, here you go, you forgot your meds. And here's some water. Okay, let's go back.
Sorry about that moozey, he manages to get out of the cage sometimes.
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I seriously lol'd.
Thanks Mark, for Facebook (Score:5, Insightful)
Still a little disturbing (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wait... 500,000 / 365 * 2 = $2739.73
If that's all you have saved, that says more about you than Zuckerburg's salary.
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Your calculation is a little off for what Zucker can make in a weekend.
-3 : Incorrectly Pedantic Ad-hominem Comment (Score:2)
You excluded any valuation of his ownership stake and options from your definition of "making" (I know Facebook is not public yet, but I _can_ estimate the value of the home I own as an asset without having to try sell it.)
Not to mention other perks like use of an executive jet.
http://www.bornrich.com/private-jet.html [bornrich.com]
If this were Apple being discussed, wouldn't we get some really kooky numbers Jobs' $1 salary?
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Your home is not a fair comparison. You can more-or-less tell what that is worth by looking at similar homes in your neighborhood. But no one knows how facebook's stock will perform, what his share will ultimately be worth, or what he will be able to sell it for. He can't just dump all his shares on opening day -- if he wanted out, he would have to sell a little bit at a time over years. So if facebook stops growing (or worse, shrinking), the stock will collapse, and Zuckerberg won't have a penny of what th
Re:Still a little disturbing (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder why I bothered doing science.
You were suckered in. I saw the light and went into medicine. It's not a perfect job, and it's definitely not science, but it's interesting and it pays well.
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Re:Still a little disturbing (Score:4, Insightful)
When people make my entire retirement savings (me+wife working for 30 years) in a weekend, I wonder why I bothered doing science. Clearly, I was in the wrong line of work and the world changed out from under me.
No-one forced you to do science. No-one promised you hundreds of millions of dollars. Why didn't you just start a highly successful business?
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When people make my entire retirement savings (me+wife working for 30 years) in a weekend, I wonder why I bothered doing science. Clearly, I was in the wrong line of work and the world changed out from under me.
What has changed? Entrepreneurs are have always been the ones getting rich, and science has never been a career choice if you want to be a fat cat. It's not that you are in the wrong line of work you just didn't have the right combination of smarts, ideas, connections, work ethic, timing and luck to make it big.
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You're confusing the laws of large numbers with success. For every facebook there are millions of failures. These people simply take advantage of economies of scale. If you want the big money you have to be in a position of authority on incoming revenue over the business. It's better to be an owner then a worker. That's why the richest people tend to be owners or something close to it.
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Even facebook would have failed without a stream of venture capital during the YEARS it was loosing money. Zuckerberg actually got 2 lucky breaks: building facebook + finding people willing to throw money at him (we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.. so I think that's an accurate description).
Did you follow or did you lead? (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean no offense to you or your line of work, I am in the same boat. I followed. I am happy where I am at. I know where I want to be and work to get there.
Just like there are superstars in sports there are superstars in business. Whether they bring new products or innovation matters not, their drive is wholly different.
Now I know some will write it off to luck and yes, there are many cases of luck. Guess what, you don't get lucky not doing. You get lucky by trying, in some cases over and over and over.
Look at it this way, I would rather live in a system where there are untold riches for those who succeed. He isn't some politician deciding from up on high the winner or losers. He is deciding for himself and there are hundreds, if not thousands along for the ride. He created something many people value.
Some need that mythical pot of gold on the other side of the rainbow, others just feel the need to do. Which is he? Hell if I know. I don't have the drive but am quite happy to be in their world.
zuckerburg annual salary (Score:2)
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ISO options aren't, but even then he'd have to wait a year to exercise the options if he wanted to avoid short-term capital gains taxes (which are the same as income taxes).
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Title grammar? (Score:2)
"Facebook Details Executive Salaries, Bonuses"
Why do Americans use this strange form of English? I mean using a comma to separate nouns and usually only towards the end of a sentence. The obvious way to write the same thing would surely be "Facebook details executive salaries and bonuses."
Not a criticism by the way. I would really like to know and Google has not helped me.
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Because 2nd grade English class is not a prerequisite for Slashdot editors. We don't learn it that way in school, rest assured.
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Specially designed to inspire shareholder confidence if you're a believer, or to lower his tax bracket if you're a cynic.
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
Those cynics are idiots. His dividend/capital gains are going to be the same whether he has a salary or not. So yeah, he'd have to pay more taxes if he made more money, but he'd... wait for it... make more money!
The cynics are right in cases where the employee takes a salary cut but is instead compensated in some other way which is taxed at a lower level.
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
Those cynics are idiots. His dividend/capital gains are going to be the same whether he has a salary or not. So yeah, he'd have to pay more taxes if he made more money, but he'd... wait for it... make more money! The cynics are right in cases where the employee takes a salary cut but is instead compensated in some other way which is taxed at a lower level.
Bonuses in shares instead of salary are just such compensation taxed at a very low rate and the employee can borrow against the stocks and still come out ahead of paying taxes. The executive is happy. The bank is happy. The government and the people who expect taxation to be fair and just... screwed.
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Yes, there are many tricks like that. I can't write-off the miles on my second car even though the only reason we have a second car is so that I can get to work. Yet my VP can drive around in a company car and the company can write it off.
But that's not the sort of thing we are talking about here. The man holds billions worth of Facebook stock... any dip (or rise) in stock price is of far more concern to him than all the incentive packages the board could possibly come up with. He already has motivation to
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Why would he care so much about dividends? He can just sell a bit of his stock. The capital gain tax is also 15%, makes no difference either way.
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Ever since the bush tax cuts of '01/'03, dividend payments fro
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This makes sense for moderate size stockholders with varied holdings, who value a steady cash flow. For immense fortunes like his, almost completely invested in one company, it would make much more sense to sell stock.
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The only way that argument makes any sense is if you believe that Zuckerberg thinks that doing the Steve Jobs $1 salary thing won't affect stock price.
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Sv 1$ salarys could see a very big backlash and some poujadist type laws being enacted quickly
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I'm all for flattening the tax code - I just don't think that Zuckerberg is trying to avoid taxes as his primary motive in this particular case. He's already getting 4 billion dollars worth of stock... if the stock goes up by 1%, he makes 40 million dollars. He is far, far more concerned with moving the stock price than he is in his tax rate.
Personally, I'd like to see the feds kill the corporate tax. This would eliminate the "double taxation" howls and then you could jack up the dividend and capital gains
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What do you mean? Equities would still be attractive, and I don't think artificially pumping up the value of equities with the tax code is healthy in the long term anyway.
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I'm sure this will get modded down, but I believe the only "fair and just" way to implement a tax is to divide the federal budget by the number of citizens. Everyone pays their fair share and there is no way to dodge it.
With current spending levels at $11,504.62. I'd wager most of us here pay more around that number or more... and we're not rich by any means, personally I feel quite poor. Now think about cuts to spending and bringing federal government back to a small, unbloated and Constitutional size and
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I'm sure this will get modded down, but I believe the only "fair and just" way to implement a tax is to divide the federal budget by the number of citizens. Everyone pays their fair share and there is no way to dodge it.
That would be fair, but only if the world were fair to start with. That is to say 100% inheritance tax and everyone given an equal share of all wealth at birth. Of course that is impractical, so we try to create a somewhat fair and sustainable system by progressive taxation, where those that make more and have more pay more. This ostensibly prevents the wealth consolidation principal from kicking in so hard all the wealth is owned by a few aristocrats until the peasants revolt and we start the cycle again.
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I seriously doubt Zuckerburg is relying at all on Social Security for retirement.
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You'd have to be a weird sort of dude to give charity to the federal government.
I reduce my tax burden as much as is legal, so I don't think the rich are all that "different" on that particular score.
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Wow! I didn't realize it was charity to pay taxes, given it's taxes that provide services oneself enjoys* but, if wealthy enough, services that others enjoy as well. Well, I guess it is charity in the sense that it means potentially paying more than you get out for the benefit of others. Personally, I'd just consider that a common duty of anyone with the means towards humanity. But, then, I take that from the idea that just
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Hell, when middle and upper middle class people started actually buying stocks directly (as day traders), their was an incredible amount of bitching and moaning from the rich
In contrast poker players trying to make money are actually happy if more fish join the table.
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Wow! I didn't realize it was charity to pay taxes
It's not. It's charity to pay more than you owe.
Otherwise I suspect we largely agree.
but when companies require you to buy at least 1,000 shares of stock and stocks sell for at least $1
I sympathize and agree with your general argument, but on this point you are way off. You can open an etrade account for free and then trade any number of shares for the $9.99 commission. Now, to keep your overhead sane, you should probably not spend 10 bucks to buy $100 worth of stock. The real barrier to entry is that most people simply don't save at all. It's in our blood as Americans - not sure what the real problem is.
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On the other hand, businesses get more tax breaks as well. That they only pay taxes on the profits means that the owners get to invest; in infrastructure, workers, r&d, etc. for free. They also don't have to pay taxes on capital appreciation for their stock in that company and those investments. Theoretically, the super rich are supposed to pay that tax when they die, but there are lots of ways around that. Less than a quarter of the Walmart fortune has seen a dime of taxes. Do they deserve that mu
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You, as an investor, now pay that tax TIMES the capital gains tax.
You say that as if it's a bad thing... You do realize that 15% TIMES 15% is less than 15%, right? That's also not how it works, at all, anyways.
You are an idiot... you don't even understand basic arithmetic, why should anyone trust your "insights" into what makes an economy successful???
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No, the surest way to quench an economy is to let the infrastructure crumble, reduce public education, eliminate social services, and/or run these programs at a huge deficit until you go bankrupt.
You want a first world country? Fucking pay for it. None of the rich you are so defensive of are going to suffer under a reasonable tax code like we had in the 90's. They actually will suffer if we dismantle the beautiful country we've built over the past 60 years despite the whining of people like yourself.
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FICA is mostly for social security (some small portion is for medicare). Considering that social security benefits are also capped at ~$24,000 per year, it seems quite fair. Are you trying to suggest that the cap be lifted? It's not as if any of it (supposedly) goes to paying for anything but his retirement anyhow. Are you trying to say that the rich need a better retirement plan? Even if they remove the $106,800 cap, it's not going to affect YOU in any way at all, nor will it reduce your federal tax burde
Re:What? (Score:5, Interesting)
FWIW, Jobs only got $1 annual salary, plus lots of stock options (at a "special" rate). Since he didn't get paid a salary that could be taxed, he "borrowed" against his stock and options, which is not taxable until the options are converted to stock, or the stock sold, and then it is "capital gains", and not simple income, at a much lower tax rate... So, in effect, he was paid million$, but had a tax burden much less, percentage-wise, than the rest of us working schlubs!
Re:What? (Score:4, Interesting)
Jobs and Zuck will also own a large chunk of a different class of shares that the typical stock price. These special shares will have things like more voting rights, potentially pay a dividend or similar every year, they may (or may not, depending) be unlimited liability rather than traditional limited liability stocks and so on. I'm not quite sure how apple and facebook do (or will do) it, but this is pretty common for most big companies.
It's because of these different share classes that zuck will be able to give himself 60% of the voting power in the company, despite owning only about 25% of the value of the company.
Being the CEO of a company comes with a few perks too. That private jet the company owns? You're using it for business purposes, even if you're flying to florida for golfing, it's always part of your security/connectedness/etc. requirement, and because you're golfing with the CEO of another company it's business meeting, so it's not a taxable benefit since it is for work.
Over the years regulators have become less fond of the more archaic schemes, like rather than hiring you, they're contracting sir_sri management services, a wholly own subsidiary of Sri's Cayman Island management group, where Sri officially claims residence, so the housing, provided by the company, is a 'temporary residence' and for the use of any of Sir_Sri Management services employees who may be required to fulfill the terms of the contract (not disclosed), and they're families who may also have an expense account to deal with the temporary relocation from the Cayman islands. Oh and because you're only there temporarily, all your meals, and general housing services are also covered expenses*.
* a lot of this still happens a lot, justifiably so, on shorter term stuff.
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...and because you're golfing with the CEO of another company it's business meeting, so it's not a taxable benefit since it is for work.
I really wish the IRS would make it so that you can only deduct things necessary for the business to function. There is no reason that you need to play golf with the CEO, or your latest client. Meet with them in a fucking office meeting room and stop using the business as a tax free credit card!
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
That might make it a pretty dreary work environment. That office party you throw for every 10th/100th product you sell, that christmas party, that free lunch fridays are all unnecessary to the core function of the business. So they'd be taxable benefits, so who would do any of it? Treat your employees like drones, and you get drones. Germany up until relatively recently even let bribes be a deductible business expense, because well, that's the cost of doing business a lot of places. I think you lose a competitive edge if you can't wine and dine other guys, and there really is a lot to be said for having semi-casual business discussions.
Don't get me wrong, I mentioned it because it is abused, but there's probably a legitimate case for business expenses to include treating your people and customers like more than just drones.
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I don't know what you're talking about - I've never worked at a company that spent anything on... parties, and at the few companies that do throw up the one single Christmas party, those types of parties are considered a boring chore.
I'd rather work at some place that spends less on stupid crap, pays better, and allows me the freedom to spend my time and money however I want, thank you very much.
My coworkers are not my friends. I'm not exactly running out of friends, and I don't want to be judged as a profe
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I do wonder if the less visible Facebook execs have any plans to support the country that made them rich.
What line do you have to stand in to be made rich by your country? Because I want to stand in that line.
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Generally, it's the line where you get born to rich parents.
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There are such "lines" all over the country. Join a start-up. Start a business. Work on Wall Street. Make the next Minecraft or Braid. Play professional sports. Become a musician or actor. Of course, doing those things doesn't guarantee success. There's quite a lot of work required, and quite a bit of luck needed too. But that doesn't mean that the country didn't enable your success.
Being born in a great nation like the US means that you get opportunities that people in Syria or Moldova or the Cong
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Public education for him and his employees. Infrastructure to help him and his employees get around and provide them with the electricity needed for their work. Safety and stability so that he doesn't have to pay millions of dollars in protection money to organized crime. Safe, plentiful food and clean water, so that he didn't die as a child. Clean air, so that he doesn't have horrible respiratory illnesses. Social safety nets so that he could take risks without fear of dying in the gutter if he failed. And so on.
Nobody gets where they are alone. Everyone relies on the society they live in for support. That's why you don't see people like Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg coming out of Somalia. Unfortunately, it's now become commonplace to deny this obvious truth, because "Greed is Good", at least in the minds of the greedy.
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
Nobody gets where they are alone. Everyone relies on the society they live in for support. That's why you don't see people like Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg coming out of Somalia.
No, no, no! Somalia's not like American because it doesn't have enough Jobses and Zuckerbergs! They're the job creators! If Somalians had more of that entrepeneurial spirit, they'd be rich too!
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Capitalism doesn't work without strong property rights and an equal rule of law. Somalia has neither."
It's only the Somalia *does* have equal rule of law, in fact a single law, "the one on the right side of the AK-47 commands" and *does* have the strongest of property rights, just try to take off the AK-47 from the hands that hold it from the right side.
It's only ridiculous to claim that Somalia doesn't enjoys the benefits of capitalism in its purest form.
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"Somalia is by no means experiencing any kind of credibly free market"
It's of course true that Somalia is not what Adam Smith had in mind when writting about "the wealth of nations". But I'd say that, as Newton was wrong because of his implicits (no, speed is not an absolute magnitude), so it was Smith with those of him (no, there's no need of "democracy and imperium of law ala occidental way" for the basics of capitalism to apply). Once one understands this, it's obvious that, quite in fact, Somalia is n
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Shooting Zuckerberg and Murdoch? Murdoch is a scumbag that actively tries to have laws changed to hurt regular people, so I could understand some vitriol there.
But all Zuckerberg did was make a service that millions of people love. And he did it without selling anyone's personal information, buying draconian legislation, etc.
You might find facebook annoying, or be jealous of his site's success, but let's not get stupid.
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Nonsense. Gov't destroyed education, not improved it, made it much more expensive and destroyed the quality.
Gov't doesn't create infrastructure, in fact gov't can do absolutely nothing without the free enterprise providing the means for it. The wealth is FIRST created by the people who work for living and then gov't comes in and steals it, reduces the overall amount of wealth in the system, scatters it around among its preferred people and then this is called 'public good'.
I am happy to live in times when t
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Nothing you're saying holds up to reality. I challenge you to give one example, from anywhere in the diversity of the whole world through all history, where good infrastructure and an educated general population was created without strong central government. I have been asking for an example of this for almost a decade now, and it seems to be how you get a libertarian fundamentalist to shut up or change the subject.
So.... got anything to bring to the table for discussion?
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For decades I've answered that question in exactly the same way - USA 1870-1913, Switzerland for the last 20 years, China today.
Good infrastructure means infrastructure that market requires.
Good education means education that market requires.
USA had no strong central government before the Fed and IRS basically, all of these abominations: Fed, IRS, FDA, EPA, FAA, FCC, FDIC, FBI, F&F, SS, Medicare, Medicaid, labour laws, dept's of education, energy, commerce, agriculture, interior, etc., all of this was c
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Oh, and the people who are able to build their businesses and then are able to be paid more money than average are already giving back to society much more than society EVER gave them.
Facebook didn't exist and now 10% of population are on it. Definitely 1 person giving 10% of population something they are willing to use is much more important than any taxes that can ever be collected or anything that this person was ever given by anybody.
He shouldn't be paying ANY taxes, he already pays his dues to the soci
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Blah blah blah, I don't see you providing society with anything but hot air on /. Come on, slacker, do something. Make billions for yourself and others around you. You are not from Somalia, are you?
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Oh, I see, so just stealing from others, who do make it a goal then?
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Nobody gets where they are alone. Everyone relies on the society they live in for support. That's why you don't see people like Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg coming out of Somalia. Unfortunately, it's now become commonplace to deny this obvious truth, because "Greed is Good", at least in the minds of the greedy.
- this 'Elizabeth Warren' talk is also complete nonsense, and I can easily show it with a few facts.
Out of 37 richest self-made people in USA, 27 were born prior to 1850. Only 3 were born in the 20th century - Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Sam Walton.
Over the 1870 to 1913 period of time people became much wealthier relatively to the time preceding that period than people over the entire 20th century relatively to the 1870 to 1913 period. This was done without most of what is called 'government' today, inc
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It's like you don't understand what freedom means. I'm going to guess you've never spent much time living in a country without all the social services you take for granted and malign. There is no meaningful freedom without a strong, well run central government. Unless, again, you want to point to places like Somalia as "free".
Don't actually explore reality, though. Go back to theorizing that pure libertarianism would somehow miraculously play out differently than it has in every "free" area throughout all o
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I guess one answer is, why do these success stories tend to occur in the US rather then elsewhere? Why isn't Silicon Valley in a tax haven instead of California?
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She probably doesn't understand why you want people asking her about executive compensation instead of asking her boss.
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She earns $2 a year? Wow, her boss ist a bastard.
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If they were you, I suppose they would sit around all night and post on Slashdot. ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Facebook.
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It's funny that when people talk about 1 dollar executives they get all lovey-eyed, but when they talk about executives pay
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Sounds like somebody hasn't heard of secondary markets. He can most definitely sell his shares pre-IPO (FTC regulations notwithstanding, which would certainly come into play now that an S1 has been filed).
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Re:And we care because? (Score:5, Funny)
Speak for yourself!
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useless tool makes a pile of money fucking everyone else in the world news at 11
Given the size of the company, and number of customers, $275k for a General Council or Head Engineer, $300k for a COO, and $500k for a CEO (plus potential 45% bonuses for all) is a pretty fair deal. Theses guys work long, hard hours, and have a lot of responsibility.
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I guarantee you they are not working more than thrice as many hours, and take less risk than I do.
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It's not Zuck's fault you're underpaid.
Re:And we care because? (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, it is. He entered into a secret, probably illegal (still to be tested in court) agreement with my potential employers to hold down wages.
Re:And we care because? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are correct, but I imagine that what you do creates less value and is less unique than what they do. We're not paid by how long and hard we work, but rather by the combined perception of how much value we provide and how hard it would be to replace us. Is it always fair? No. Is it always unfair? Also no.
Re:And we care because? (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely. I purely take exception to the story that we're rewarding risk taking and hard work. We're not. We don't reward those things. We reward success in the marketplace, and that's it.
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It's a common trope that our capitalist society is designed to reward successful risk takers.
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No, but the public sector is generally underpaid compared to the private sector, so the comparison is a bit off.
This is why the idea that privatizing saves money is a joke. The government is inefficient compared to the impossible ideals we hold it up to... but not compared to most large industry.
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As far as my friends go, it usually takes some incidence of drama to get them to quit. Two of my friends quit as a result of bad breakups with ex-wives. I was smart enough to learn those lessons back in the MySpace days, when I was in a relationship living with my girlfriend:
" Ethanol, who is that bitch you added to your friends list? Are you cheating on me ?! "
" Uh, she's my sister. No, I am not cheating on you.
( 3 days later )
" Ethanol, who is that bitch you just added to your friend's list. Are you gonna cheat on me with her?! "
" No, she's my fucking grandma! "
That teacher, incidentally, moonlights
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In the example you gave I don't see how MySpace was the problem at all, your insecure, jealous girlfriend would have given you grief with or without MySpace.
As for your classmates, why would they have friends on Facebook that they don't care about? If there are people on Facebook I don't care about I either hide them or unfriend them. Social networking is a tool. That some people don't know how to use it is not the tools fault.
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Agreed, and it is reassuring to be in class and see that more and more people are ditching Social networking and saying, "get over yourselves - we don't care what you do in your personal lives."
As far as my friends go, it usually takes some incidence of drama to get them to quit. Two of my friends quit as a result of bad breakups with ex-wives. I was smart enough to learn those lessons back in the MySpace days, when I was in a relationship living with my girlfriend:
" Ethanol, who is that bitch you added to your friends list? Are you cheating on me ?! "
" Uh, she's my sister. No, I am not cheating on you.
( 3 days later )
" Ethanol, who is that bitch you just added to your friend's list. Are you gonna cheat on me with her?! "
" No, she's my fucking grandma! "
That teacher, incidentally, moonlights as a consultant and encouraged us all to "network," because that's how people get jobs and succeed, he thinks.
He should tell that to my boss, an utterly unqualified asshole and idiot, who got his job due to networking because his buddy was his boss and friends with his boss' boss. After he utterly ruined our department, blaming his faults on us, and sent morale through the floor blaming and bullying, I led a revolt to overthrow him. Consultants were called in to see where the faults were and his buddy-boss was asked to leave the company. Now everybody involved in the idiot's hiring is getting a pistol-whipping from corporate, and he's on his way out. Meanwhile, the department (except for the boss, of course) got bonuses for showing self-sufficiency in the absense of real leadership.
In short, "networking" is another bullshit buzzword. Any decent employee can succeed by merit alone.
If they network alone.
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There's no irony in using the necessary tools to get your message out. Were you the same crazy guy complaining when they used the newspapers too, because those were owned by rich guys?
You use the forum that you have to. Often there isn't a superior venue to the one that in the short run benefits one of your opponents. That doesn't mean you'll lose in the long run.
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