Former RIM CEOs Get Millions

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Wouldn't it be great to get millions and millions of dollars for running a company into the dirt?

According to RIM’s latest 6-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Balsillie was given a payout of $7.93 million for the current fiscal year, which includes salary, bonus and a severance package valued at about $4.8 million. Lazaridis received $3.96 million in salary and awards, as well as a 10-year extension on health coverage for himself and his family, and a company car and driver.
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This is why executive compensation should be modest, with incentives and bonuses delayed for 5-10 years or until retirement (an annuity, etc.). And they should receive bonds for part of their compensation. These millions should probably go back to shareholders.

(and companies like GS should be partnerships again, but that's a different issue)
 
singe_101 said:
This is why executive compensation should be modest, with incentives and bonuses delayed for 5-10 years or until retirement (an annuity, etc.). And they should receive bonds for part of their compensation. These millions should probably go back to shareholders.

(and companies like GS should be partnerships again, but that's a different issue)
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And actors shouldn't get paid millions for barely working at all but if the money were on the table for you, you would take it too. And then others could shake their fists in righteous indignation at you as you cruised by sipping bubbly in your chauffeured car because, what the hell, the extension on your health plan will cover your new liver. :D
 
Dwango said:
And actors shouldn't get paid millions for barely working at all but if the money were on the table for you, you would take it too. And then others could shake their fists in righteous indignation at you as you cruised by sipping bubbly in your chauffeured car because, what the hell, the extension on your health plan will cover your new liver. :D
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How do actors barely work? 12-15 hour days for up to a year at a time isn't working?
 
Dwango said:
And actors shouldn't get paid millions for barely working at all but if the money were on the table for you, you would take it too. And then others could shake their fists in righteous indignation at you as you cruised by sipping bubbly in your chauffeured car because, what the hell, the extension on your health plan will cover your new liver. :D
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Research In Motion is a Canadian company. I can't see too many people NEEDING health coverage being paid by the company...
 
The one thing I don't get is why RIM didn't switch to Android? I mean they weren't obligated to stick with RIM OS. I doubt anybody would complain.
 
Dwango said:
And actors shouldn't get paid millions for barely working at all but if the money were on the table for you, you would take it too. And then others could shake their fists in righteous indignation at you as you cruised by sipping bubbly in your chauffeured car because, what the hell, the extension on your health plan will cover your new liver. :D
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Most actors don't get millions of dollars, most projects aren't major, national theatrical releases.

There are some actors that will attract 100k-millions of people to buy a ticket, watch it on a premimum channel, or rent/on-demand the movie. If it's Mark Wahlberg in an action movie, or Statham, they know what to expect. Some fans look at the actors first, and that's about it. Plot, director, etc. are all small details.
 
Cry some more. Its between these individuals and the Board of Directors. Its nobody else business. If the BoD wants to run the company into the ground with stupid decisions, thats their problem.
 
Monkey God said:
Cry some more. Its between these individuals and the Board of Directors. Its nobody else business. If the BoD wants to run the company into the ground with stupid decisions, thats their problem.
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Except that it's also the business of the people they employ. They might not like their company making stupid decisions that cost them their jobs.
 
ballistic90 said:
Except that it's also the business of the people they employ. They might not like their company making stupid decisions that cost them their jobs.
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Who gives a shit what non-stock holders think? The whole concept that a companies purpose is to provide jobs has no place in a capitalist society. Employees have the freedom to switch jobs any time they like. Companies DO provide jobs, but that is not their *purpose*. The people who started the company, and those who own the stocks get to make the decisions. If they are bad decisions, that sucks. Life doesn't come with airbags.
 
Monkey God said:
Cry some more. Its between these individuals and the Board of Directors. Its nobody else business. If the BoD wants to run the company into the ground with stupid decisions, thats their problem.
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I'm sure the shareholders and/or owners of the company would have a bit of disagreement with that.
 
Monkey God said:
Cry some more. Its between these individuals and the Board of Directors. Its nobody else business. If the BoD wants to run the company into the ground with stupid decisions, thats their problem.
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Exactly This!

Whatever the CEO has negotiated as his pay is what he should get, according to the terms and conditions set forth in the arrangement.

I have something to say to all those complaining about CEO salaries:

Think about your own job, do you realize that your salary probably seems like a fortune to many many people in the world, especially those in Africa and the like? Should we call foul and demand that your paycheck be revoked because you are making such an extreme amount of money? Is that fair? No, of course not. You negotiated upon applying for employment what your salary and/or wage would be, and provided you meet the conditions of employment, you will be provided the compensation that was agreed upon.

I am so sick of all these reports of people getting bent out of shape because some CEO made a lot of money. Being upset about CEO wages is just jealousy, envy and coveting. You know what, instead of being upset, I am very happy that the American dream is still attainable. I aspire to reach the level of a CEO or equivalent someday as well, I hope to be competent enough to not only run a large company and receive large compensation, but also be smart, hard-working and valuable enough that people are willing to negotiate such large sums of money to provide me as compensation.

I'm sure most people would agree that most corporations are all about the bottom line right? Well, CEOs are paid this amount of money because the corporation believes that having this key person as the CEO of the company is worth every penny, they don't pay this money just because they feel like making one person richer than everyone else, they pay it because they believe that the return on their investment in this person will pay for itself in competent business leadership and direction.

Instead of complaining about this, why not try to improve yourself and negotiate your own situation into something better? If you can't find somebody willing to pay you more than what you make now, start your OWN company, then you will really be deserving of whatever amount of money you make and wont have anyone to blame except yourself if you aren't making the money you want.
 
Vicinity said:
How do actors barely work? 12-15 hour days for up to a year at a time isn't working?
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Most of that time is sitting around waiting for the set to be...uh... set :p Those 12-15 hour workdays you hear about are nonsense. Believe me.
 
It's not that much money for this particular RIM job. I mean, the position is pretty much something that everyone lusts after and just because these guys were a little premature about leaving or didn't rub phone buyers in just the right way doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to have a happy ending. I think a lot of the complaints come from the fact that they got the biggest RIM jobs of anyone and everyone is jealous that they're still getting their payout even though they couldn't quite perform. Google and Apple have really be stuffing them hard and fast and RIM's engineers can only shoot one out at a time. Expecting them dump their product over and over again without getting any rest isn't really fair considering they have a lot less to work with compared to the giant hoses of their competition. Their jobs were, everyone will admit, rock hard. They probably both worked it longer than any other person in the office, staying late when it's dark, getting all sweaty when they're alone. They put their health behind them since doing it that much is probably going to make some nasty sores. So yeah, back off already. RIM's investors have been watching these CEOs the whole time and they know what's up on the other side of their desks. Slap them with a big load of green stuff and let them walk away with a smile.
 
Vicinity said:
How do actors barely work? 12-15 hour days for up to a year at a time isn't working?
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You're thinking of the "starving" actor. We're talking millionaires here. The guys and gals taking home 15 or 20 million a movie that took them all of 2 or 3 months to film. And I can guarantee none of them were working 12-15 hours a day (though their stand-ins might have been).


ballistic90 said:
Research In Motion is a Canadian company. I can't see too many people NEEDING health coverage being paid by the company...
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So you can only be on the executive team of a Canadian company if you're Canadian?
 
cmon now i am against most packages for the upper "elites"that underperform...but, these packages are peanuts. those 2 did bring rim to lofty heights in the first place and shareholders reaped the returns :)
 
Screw you guys.. a car and driver is ballin'

While I hate petty greed, there is much worse overseas in the UAE where these guys could do so much with what they earn in week - let alone a year.
 
I find most CEOs and exec people make way too much money, for any company. I can understand top execs making 100k, maybe 150k at most, CEO making 300k maybe. But when it gets into the millions, it's just utter ridiculous. When one makes enough money in a year to be able to retire for life, motivation goes away because there is no incentive to keep trying other than to rack in even more money, but if you get fired or want to retire because you drove the company to the ground, not really a huge deal because you're set for life anyway.

My company's CEO makes like 4million, yet she's always complaining that the company is not making enough money and some centers need to be closed etc... We lost all our bonuses, raised, some benefits etc.... she still got her huge bonus and raise. Seems it works this way at lot of companies too.

I know if I was CEO for a company I would really change that. Employees would get better bonuses for performance, more incentives to perform and go above and beyond, and I'd probably take lot of my salary and put it back towards the company to buy supplies and what not while some is donated to charity. Especially once I already have a million in the bank after working a few years. There's no point in hoarding more money than that, really. At least, I like to believe that's what I'd want to do.
 
RedStarSQD said:
cmon now i am against most packages for the upper "elites"that underperform...but, these packages are peanuts. those 2 did bring rim to lofty heights in the first place and shareholders reaped the returns :)
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I dunno, RIM did have some good times in the past when it was really erect among its competition. In a softening market, one just expects the company's sales record to turn flaccid. Do CEOs deserve to have a great package for not grabbing the knob and pulling when the time was right? Who knows. Yeah, everything is really messy right now and the loss of RIM jobs is leaving a bad aftertaste in everyones' mouth, but if they really get into the action and start pumping it, I think they can score big.
 
when are we gonna see a headline with the title, Former CEO gets millions of years?
 
Red Squirrel said:
I find most CEOs and exec people make way too much money, for any company. I can understand top execs making 100k, maybe 150k at most, CEO making 300k maybe. But when it gets into the millions, it's just utter ridiculous. When one makes enough money in a year to be able to retire for life, motivation goes away because there is no incentive to keep trying other than to rack in even more money, but if you get fired or want to retire because you drove the company to the ground, not really a huge deal because you're set for life anyway.

My company's CEO makes like 4million, yet she's always complaining that the company is not making enough money and some centers need to be closed etc... We lost all our bonuses, raised, some benefits etc.... she still got her huge bonus and raise. Seems it works this way at lot of companies too.

I know if I was CEO for a company I would really change that. Employees would get better bonuses for performance, more incentives to perform and go above and beyond, and I'd probably take lot of my salary and put it back towards the company to buy supplies and what not while some is donated to charity. Especially once I already have a million in the bank after working a few years. There's no point in hoarding more money than that, really. At least, I like to believe that's what I'd want to do.
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The execs of large companies used to do this because the top marginal tax rates forced their hand. Why give the government the bulk of your huge salary via taxes when you can pour it back into the company and it's resources? It only made good business sense to do so. Use the money to benefit the company and give Uncle Sam the minimum in taxes, easily a smart business decision. Once the upper tax rates dropped enough and enough loopholes were punched in the tax laws via purchasing congresscritters, it no longer made sense for them to reinvest it back into the company. They can now take it home and if the company fails, oh well, that's just the way it is in a capitalistic market!

It's much more complicated than that, but if you look back at tax rates and top exec pay, you can easily see how this can happen. I'm all for fair pay for a position but the middle class has mostly been being treading water, even sinking in some areas, while the execs are raking in the dough and benefits in ungodly amounts.

What really kills me is that many of the same people who defend these gold and diamond encrusted contracts are the same people who are more than happy to break middle class union contracts to pay workers less.

Just so the big wigs can take more home in 'performance' bonuses. Fair compensation? I have no problem with that. What we have now is anything but fair, IMO.
 
Too bad it’s also true that five years ago RIM’s market cap was 16 times what it is today …
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This pretty much sums it up right here. They're getting compensated with $6 M each even though they presided over a decimation of RIM's market cap.

If you cut a corporation's market cap by a factor of 16, then you receive $6 M and a chauffeur for 10 years.

People love to wax poetical about how people should be rewarded based on their performance, that we should be a merit-based society. Unfortunately, people seem to only demand those lofty goals for the poor and the unemployed. When it comes to CEOs doing this shit, they don't give a damn, or they say that the CEO "earned" it.

May I ask, what the fuck did RIM corporation earn to compensate the guys with $6,000,000 each?

That's more than what an average American will earn in his entire life! :mad:

SkribbelKat said:
I dunno, RIM did have some good times in the past when it was really erect among its competition. In a softening market, one just expects the company's sales record to turn flaccid. Do CEOs deserve to have a great package for not grabbing the knob and pulling when the time was right? Who knows. Yeah, everything is really messy right now and the loss of RIM jobs is leaving a bad aftertaste in everyones' mouth, but if they really get into the action and start pumping it, I think they can score big.
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Brilliant. :D
 
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