Activision and EA CEOs Appear on List of "Most Overpaid" in the US

Megalith

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Non-profit foundation As You Sow has published its latest report of the 100 most overpaid CEOs, and Activision's Bobby Kotick and EA's Andrew Wilson made the list. Kotick is in the 45th spot with a pay of $28,698,375, which is “306 times more than his average employee.” PC Gamer points out Activision “recently celebrated record profits while laying off hundreds.” Wilson earned “$35,728,764, which is 371 times more than his average employee.”

The report notes that while shareholders have started to oppose the huge amounts of cash being earned by CEOs generally, their pay is still increasing. "Yet overall CEO pay continues to increase. According to Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) the average pay for a CEO in the S&P 500 grew from $11.5 million in 2013 to $13.6 million in 2017. An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, which includes the cashing in of stock options, found that 'in 2017 the average CEO of the 350 largest firms in the U.S. received $18.9 million in compensation, a 17.6 percent increase over 2016.'"
 
It's a vicious cycle. Capitalism is great and all until things in certain areas get skewed to the point of lunacy.

One would think the easy fix would be for commercial companies to self-monitor/self-regulate and impose a max employee cap of say 5 million a year from ALL sources of corporate income regardless of where it is coming from (stocks, bonuses, salary, etc). That would certainly be more reasonable and less insane than what is curently going on. The problem is that these fat cats set their own rules... so why would they bother to change them? They are greedy bastards and simply won't, so we end up here and it just keeps getting worse until eventually the company crumbles, resets and then it starts all over again.

There is no fix unless either the company changes or the government forces them to. Perhaps the easiest and most direct fix would be to have the government tax the shit out of anyone making more than a certain amount per year. But, I would much rather that corporate America get its act together and impose their own set of internal rules.

Imagine how much better EA or Activision products would be if their top brass and all corporate execs were salary capped at no more than 5 million a year as to income. And all of that excess income went directly into actually paying game designers/developers to produce great games... We would be living in a gaming utopia right now.
 
So let me get this straight, if anyone of you would be a ceo , you would all turn down these comp packs? Be honest now..
Yes. Who really needs more than $10 million per year? I genuinely would be hard pressed to ever spend that kind of money.
 
It's a vicious cycle. Capitalism is great and all until things in certain areas get skewed to the point of lunacy.

One would think the easy fix would be for commercial companies to self-monitor/self-regulate and impose a max employee cap of say 5 million a year from ALL sources of corporate income regardless of where it is coming from (stocks, bonuses, salary, etc). That would certainly be more reasonable and less insane than what is curently going on. The problem is that these fat cats set their own rules... so why would they bother to change them? They are greedy bastards and simply won't, so we end up here and it just keeps getting worse until eventually the company crumbles, resets and then it starts all over again.

There is no fix unless either the company changes or the government forces them to. Perhaps the easiest and most direct fix would be to have the government tax the shit out of anyone making more than a certain amount per year. But, I would much rather that corporate America get its act together and impose their own set of internal rules.

Imagine how much better EA or Activision products would be if their top brass and all corporate execs were salary capped at no more than 5 million a year as to income. And all of that excess income went directly into actually paying game designers/developers to produce great games... We would be living in a gaming utopia right now.
It takes a lot of people working for peanuts to enable such a top-heavy company. The fix is to quit working there.

People need better standards and higher morals to quit working at these garbage-tier companies.
 
Yeah...it's not the CEOs setting their own remuneration, they just ask for it. The board of directors, and by extension the voting shareholders are the ones who accept huge offers to attract their must-have employee. It's an arms race between corporates, offer to pay less and another entity will in all likelihood snap up the leaders you wanted.
 
This is a problem across all of corporate America. The disparity has been getting worse and worse since the 1980's.

Government regulation caused this believe it or not. Limits on remuneration and importantly how excessive remuneration couldn't be used as a tax deduction for the entity. So by using stock this bypassed those causative laws.

Money has no morals. It would be very foolish to think we should expect our corporations to act morally. Not entirely sure how this is solved
 
Government regulation caused this believe it or not. Limits on remuneration and importantly how excessive remuneration couldn't be used as a tax deduction for the entity. So by using stock this bypassed those causative laws.

Money has no morals. It would be very foolish to think we should expect our corporations to act morally. Not entirely sure how this is solved

https://kuow.org/stories/note-to-am...panies-do-have-responsibility-to-their-cities

Thank goodness I live on the West Coast, where there is no God, but at least we give a shit about
our
fellow human beings.
 
What i think sucks is the ceos make so much, they could give up like 1% of thier oay and employees could get good raises out of it.
 
So let me get this straight, if anyone of you would be a ceo , you would all turn down these comp packs? Be honest now..
yes.
and i would do it in a VERY public way while funneling that money back into the company.
i dont need that much money and i would much rather pay higher wages to attract better talent
 
yes.
and i would do it in a VERY public way while funneling that money back into the company.
i dont need that much money and i would much rather pay higher wages to attract better talent

until that faithful day you snort a line of cocaine out of a hooker's asscrack. life experiences change us.
 
They can kiss my *$$. I don’t buy their junk games and surely not now.
 
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Actually they don't just get paid in money now. Cash doesn't have enough value for them anymore. Now they have to be compensated using other forms of payment. I hear they take organs, blood, babies, and human souls. Yeah, Bobby Kotick is a Shang Tsung muthafucka.
 
Meanwhile Police officers & teachers make just enough to rent an apartment. Something seriously wrong here.....

And yet the police continue to support the system that leaves them in that position; and enforce the rules created for the benefit of the wealthy and the powerful to their own detriment, in exchange for a small amount of power over the people just a bit further down the ladder than themselves. Meanwhile those teachers continue to perpetuate bullshit narratives about America as a land of equal opportunity to the children they teach...
 
And yet the police continue to support the system that leaves them in that position; and enforce the rules created for the benefit of the wealthy and the powerful to their own detriment, in exchange for a small amount of power over the people just a bit further down the ladder than themselves. Meanwhile those teachers continue to perpetuate bullshit narratives about America as a land of equal opportunity to the children they teach...

Except the police in the well off areas generally have it good so why wouldn't they support the system.

Meanwhile teachers start parroting everyone is a special snowflake.
 
You can't just blame the CEOs. The Board of Directors and shareholders allow these astronomical compensation packages.
Allow? They are the number one driving force behind it!
Most CEO's have fairly reasonable salaries*. It's the stock and stock options that often shoot CEO earnings into the stratosphere. If that is happening, the Board is also cleaning up and so are shareholders. It's quite normal for the lion's share of CEO compensation to be tied to performance. Also, keep in mind that only an incredibly small number of people are willing/able/qualified to even be a CEO.

*assuming you're not Rocky who barely banged out his GED and pre-employment urine test who now works the stockroom but swears he can do what the CEO does because stocking boxes is harder than sitting on your ass leading a massive organization that employs thousands upon thousands of people.
 
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And yet the police continue to support the system that leaves them in that position; and enforce the rules created for the benefit of the wealthy and the powerful to their own detriment, in exchange for a small amount of power over the people just a bit further down the ladder than themselves. Meanwhile those teachers continue to perpetuate bullshit narratives about America as a land of equal opportunity to the children they teach...
Well said, Mao!

In all seriousness, your rant is ill informed. Ignoring most of the vapid drivel you posted, I can assure you that the vast majority of teachers are not pushing that narrative in the US. If they were, the US would be in much better shape than it is now. Instead, you have teachers who teach victimhood mentality, intersectionality, and cultural relativism among other poisonous and damaging nonsense. The education system in the US has long been the domain of leftists who would rather eat a non-binary gender-queer pansexual dolphin that was force fed gluten than admit that the US did or does anything right.

The United States IS the land of opportunity for anyone who is willing to work instead of whine. The number of people from all across the globe trying to enter the US legally and illegally is testament to that. Deal with it.
 
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How is the pay of a CEO my business unless I am a stockholder of said company?
I think the idea is if a company is giving its CEO record pay in a time of record profits and then laying off hundreds of workers who helped make them the profit, then the more this sort of thing happens, the more it makes people question if this is such a good system in the first place.
 
I would also like a magic lamp that grants me wishes.

Hey, we all have fantasies. That’s what makes fiary tales so popular! :D

What is compelling is the analogy that can be made to other civilizations and how they tended to start to crumble when it’s leaders and ruling class (corporations in this case) became so rich and power hungry for more over all else that their avarice triggers the system to eventually collapse in on itself in an ever growing immolation of self destruction until there is simply nothing left but the ashes. Kinda hoping it doesn’t go there for us as well.
 
Hey, we all have fantasies. That’s what makes fairy tales so popular! :D

What is compelling is the analogy that can be made to other civilizations and how they tended to start to crumble when it’s leaders and ruling class (corporations in this case) became so rich and power hungry for more over all else that their avarice triggers the system to eventually collapse in on itself in an ever growing immolation of self destruction until there is simply nothing left but the ashes. Kinda hoping it doesn’t go there for us as well.

In the current situation we see, and who is in power currently. I don't realistically see how it can be avoided. All it's going to take to tip the scale is a massive drought and/or famine/ plagues. There are dumb assess who think the world is flat. People not vaccinating their kids, People being greedy while others don't have enough. This is a recipe for a civilization ending disaster. We think we are immune, but rome also though it was immune.

If you disagree? I'd love to hear it. I would LOVE to be wrong about it. But that sick feeling in my stomach tells me i'm right and it's not a matter of if but when.
 
Saying someone is "overpaid" implies you understand all the requirements and duties of the job and their ability to perform it. I don't see how the people that wrote the article, or anybody here, can claim that knowledge. CEOs are paid large sums of money for the same reason professional athletes are: because they are the rare individual that can do that job better than most of the people on the planet. That rarity, plus the perceived value (to the company, team, organization) is what drives those compensation packages, and in turn, is what partially drives those people to become the best at what they do. Saying out of hand that they are "overpaid' is just rank envy and class warfare.
 
Just a polite reminder that when Nintendo was struggling with poor sales of the WiiU, their president and board of directors volunteered to take massive pay cuts in order to continue paying their staff....
 
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