CEO Pay

One of the things that I find a bit perplexing is how much we pay CEOs.

I'm not talking about owners/CEOs, just executives who get appointed to be the CEO of a company.

Arguably they work long hours, they are expected to be on call pretty much all the time and they have to produce results to stay in the job, so they certainly deserve to be paid, but the numbers are simply astronomical.

It seems to have followed the world of sports in some steep escalation during my lifetime.  The following article discusses the latest increases to their pay.

CEO Pay

Interestingly this is the first year that the companies had to report the multiple of CEO pay to average pay.  Some of that can be distorted, but its still illuminating.

Of course the pay package gets voted on by the stockholders, many of whom are institutional investors who see nothing wrong with salaries like this.  Some of them make even more.

It just becomes difficult to imagine how a CEO is worth hundred of times more than an average worker.

The simple answer is of course because they can.  We now live in a world where a tremendous value is put on these people and it isn't going to change anytime soon.

Once again these aren't the great entrepreneurs or titans of industry, they are executives who rose through the ranks in most cases and were more than richly rewarded.

In the total picture of these companies it isn't much of an expense, but in the realm of decency and equality it certainly is.