I genuinely don’t understand how we, as a society, reached a point where delusional businessmen like this exist. What can he possible do, to justify earning this much money, while his company is literally failing in real time
There was a study about this. They gave some people an advantage in a game, like more starter money and more money when passing start in monopoly. Of course they won and if asked why, it was because they were just better than the other players. The same psychology plays out with CEO’s. They had an advantage of rich parents and/or got lucky, but will always say it’s because they are just better than the rest. And that plays out in wider society in a nice circular reasoning.
They are successful because they are better than te rest. They are better because they have money. They have money because they are successful.
It gets lapped up by the ones believing in individual freedom and making your own fortune, because current society, especially in the USA, has been one big experiment in extreme individualism. In practice it mostly turned out to be, partially by design, the old aristocracy under a new veneer.
The reality of his compensation package is a lot more nuanced. The 9 figure number is eye popping, but he’s being paid less than $2 million over 2023-2024, and almost all of the rest is contingent upon a successful IPO and then reaching a set of (incredibly unrealistic) stock valuation benchmarks. Reddit’s stock has to hit something like $45/share for him to see 8 figures and $90/share for him to realize the full amount.
I’m in no way defending this pay package or his shitty behavior, just pointing out that he’s not just getting handed $200 million outright
but he’s being paid less than $2 million over 2023-2024
Read that again. Someone making federal minimum wage would have to work 8 hours a day 5 days a week with no sick days and still wouldn’t make that much in like 130 years, which is well beyond even a generous human lifespan let alone the usable years of a lifespan.
That federal minimum wage is grossly below what is needed just to survive is a different argument, except that it’s people like Steve that are responsible for the disparity between income and subsistence level.
I read it when I wrote it, I’m comparing $2M to $200M here, not to minimum wage, and not defending anyone
Don’t forget the rest of your phrase there: justify… “to who”?
If to you, he would have to do a LOT more than he has, for you to still buy in despite seeing that.
To them, merely having the title of “CEO” seems to be enough, to those who refuse to dig deeper. pOsItIoN oF aUtHoRiTaH.
They will be shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED when their money goes poof.
Put another way, your question presupposes several things, e.g. “In a fair world, how could that be allowed to happen!?”.
BTW, Donald Trump lowered the funding for the SEC, the agency responsible for investigation of financial fraud matters. Also he + the Republican Congress lowered the funding for the IRS too. After ACTUALLY “defunding the police” with his right hand - while simultaneously claiming that the leftists wanted to “defund the police” with his left - we will see a lot more of this than we did in the past.
In the past, criminals feared the police and did not want to get caught. Now that there are fewer investigations into financial frauds… we have FA, and we are about to FO.
Unfettered capitalism.
Time to tax the corporations and the wealthy for their fair share again.
Want to solve almost all our problems? Redistribute wealth from the 1% who spend it on yachts to the rest of us to spend on healthcare, wages, etc.
Small business owner making 6 figures a year? I am not talking about you.
Spez, making 9 figures? That is who I am talking about and where the problem lies.
Yes, tax them! Failing to do so is one of the greatest failings of neoliberalism. And of course conservatives have always defaulted to giving corporations everything.
You know, in 1968, just 56 years ago, corporations were paying 52.8% tax rate! This allowed us to invest in our own people and fund so many wonderful programs for growth and prosperity. And these corporations paying over 50% of their profits in taxes were happy to do so! Because it meant they got to do business in the USA.
Now that they aren’t being taxed at even half that rate, what do they do? Buy politicians off for even lower taxes, purchase their own stock to artificially inflate its value, and pay dumbasses like spez 100s of millions of dollars yearly. And if those CEOs fuck up and tank the company? Golden parachute for you - multi-million dollar exit packages and easy access to new boards and leadership positions at other corporations. It’s sick.
All we are asking for is access to affordable healthcare, decent education to better ourselves and level up our skills, and the means to make a decent enough living to afford a roof over our heads and not have to panic about paying for it each month. This shouldn’t be too much to ask in a nation of such incredible excess.
