[rguzman]

> The author of this article was paid $42 million last year. Uber's top 7 executives received: "$11.4 million in salary and cash bonus, plus $71 million worth of equity awards."

it's misleading to call equity compensation "getting paid". there's a strong argument that executives are being over-payed, but say the CEO receiving a salary of ~1.6M (11.4/7) is a lot less egregious than them being paid $42M. surely the equity conferred to the execs gets them some cash availability in various ways, but it isn't exactly the same as just giving them money (eg what would happen if the CEO uber sold off all of his stock?).

maybe the cash portion of exec salaries ought to be much lower or maybe their equity compensation ought to be much lower, but i don't think either of these things by itself or in combination is going to solve the structural problems of the american economy such as healthcare being tied to employment.

[generalk]

  > it's misleading to call equity compensation "getting paid".

Please.

A person who has a portfolio worth tens/hundreds of millions of dollars does not have to liquidate it to leverage its value. They can secure cash loans on extremely preferential terms backed by their assets, for one.

Futher, who cares if it's "exactly the same as giving them money" or not? That doesn't change the inequality inherit in such compensation packages, just how they pay taxes.

    > [neither reducing cash or equity comp] is going to 
    > solve the structural problems of the american economy 
    > such as healthcare being tied to employment.

Sure, that's true, but that's also a fine way to allow wealth inequality to continue unchecked. Jeff Bezos can't be worth over $100B unless his company is vastly underpaying and mistreating its workers.

[minhazm]

Amazon has been paying Jeff Bezos the same $81,840 salary since 1998. On file it says he gets about $1.6 million per year, but that's mostly security costs. He doesn't get any bonuses and he doesn't get any more equity. So none of the profits that Amazon has been making have been going towards Jeff Bezos pocket to make him richer. He's worth what he is because he owned something like 43% of Amazon at IPO.

If Jeff Bezos quit Amazon in 1998 after the IPO and we were here today at the same > $3000 per share price of Amazon, Jeff Bezos would still be worth over $100 billion and would have had nothing to do with Amazon for the last 22 years. So I don't see how you can draw the conclusion that Jeff Bezos can't be worth $100 billion unless they're mistreating their workers. Those things don't have to be connected.

Now should Jeff Bezos be worth that much? Probably not. But he's worth that much because he owned a large stake in Amazon. Anyone could have purchased Amazon at IPO and would have been up over 2000x right now. If you put $500k into Amazon at IPO you'd also be a billionaire right now, does that mean that Amazon is mistreating their employees because of you?

[okr]

I always find myself in the weird position, that i think, i have to defend this kind of wealth. I do not think, that wealth inequality gets fixed by criticizing it, while at the same time i am using the services, that Amazon offers and has benefited my life. The same for by the whole world. By millions of people and companies. I paid for this wealth inequality. I take the full blame. I would switch without hesitation to something else, if it is better.

The solution for me is not to redistribute wealth by force from someone, whom i have paid before for a great service. That does not compute for me. It feels like a not justifiable punishment.

So for me the question is rather, what are the alternatives. Am i happy with AWS? Of course not. Do i want people to deliver packages and get paid badly? No. Do i find automatic package delivery attractive? Yes. But then driver lose their jobs. How to deal with that.

How to create wealth on the new foundations, where more people can participate? And dont i already see signs of it?

And, skilled labour is always wanted. All the non-computer, but crafty people do well. Everyone who can build something, that others want and cant build it, bcs... they do other things for others.

Ah, but its a useless rant.

Maybe the US is doing the right thing, bringing back the production side of things back home, so this kind of margin will be closed. Maybe it will increase then even more the productivity to make up for it. Who knows.

[kanyethegreat]

Jeff Bezos is a bad example for the point you're trying to make. He's worth that because he held (and built) an asset that increased massively in value over the past ~30 years. Not because his comp was too high.

[rargulati]

Couldn’t his company be worth more than a trillion because it’s...adding far greater value to the ecosystem it exists in? And his share is in the ~100B as he captures the upside through being a founder and taking the early risk?

[zzzeek]

> it's misleading to call equity compensation "getting paid".

how strange, I think it's misleading to not call equity compensation "getting paid" and the IRS seems to agree? When my company grants me vested shares, a whole bunch go right to the IRS instead. Because it's "income".

[jolux]

This is kind of a red herring because while you’re right that it would be a bad sign for a CEO to dump all their stock, they have access to whatever liquidity they need through it, and are likely going to diversify their gains.

[Miner49er]

I agree, equity is likely even more valuable then the price given. It gives part ownership and voting rights in Uber. The employees could collectively use their voting rights to have a voice in the direction of the company.

[CPLX]

> it's misleading to call equity compensation "getting paid"

I would say that compensating an employee with a financial instrument of known value is in fact the exact same thing as getting paid.

[Klinky]

The equity gives them a very strong position to make many many millions more. Yeah it's more complicated to cash out, but it's a huge opportunity not granted to the labor.