back to article Profit healthy, sales up, 4,000 staff face axe. Cisco CEO, here's your pay doubled to $21m

Cisco chief exec John Chambers has received a whopping pat on the back from the networking giant with a pay rise of nearly 100 per cent. According to a regulatory filing, the biz supremo saw his total annual compensation almost double to a massive $21.05m (£12.9m) in the financial year that ended on July 27, up from a measly $ …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Name change overdue

    I wonder when the United States will simply, and quite honestly, refer to its modern political system as "corporatist" and get it over and done with.

  2. James 51

    I wonder what the wages of the people who faced the axe came to.

  3. Anomalous Cowshed

    They have no choice

    This year's profits were only around 10 billion USD. It is therefore absolutely vital to shed staff or it is most unlikely that the major rise in profits that is necessary to satisfy the shareholders and the senior managers' pockets will ever materialise. Other options to turn the company around include the possibility of raising prices or lowering quality and reliability by outsourcing production to China. This would enable Cisco to get rid of thousands of engineers and programmers who, let's face it, are just dead weight in this day and age. By saving on expensive US R&D and manufacturing (forgive my ignorance if this isn't already the case) and in-house engineering, and focusing on rebranding (like some other well-known US tech companies which for reasons of confidentiality we would rather not name here), Cisco could then recruit more marketing specialists to shift boxes and managers to shuffle paper, and still increase the profits paid to the company's long-suffering shareholders.

    1. Johan Bastiaansen
      Angel

      Re: They have no choice

      You're right: in their world, they have no choice.

      But there's treatment for these crazy people right?

      1. Anomalous Cowshed

        Re: to Johan

        Frankly given the state of my income, I don't wish there was a treatment for these crazy people, I wish there was a treatment for me so that I could become one of them.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: to Johan

          "I wish there was a treatment for me so that I could become one of them"

          Actually, that's our problem in a nutshell: so many people think that, by supporting the corporatist agenda, that they can join the 2% that is exactly what they do. Even if it hurts them "now", they expect / hope / dream / fantasize that they can join the 2% "later" so their suffering will only be temporary as the agendas lift them up to the Promised Land.

          If only they had one stitch of historical knowledge about themselves to know that the "2%" always have made sure that they STAY 2%...and never spread too much around lest the figure turn to "10%", which no longer makes them as special.

        2. Oliver 7

          Re: to Johan

          "I wish there was a treatment for me so that I could become one of them."

          As good as it may sound, by the time you were one of them you'd be barely human. There is more to life...

    2. the_dude

      Re: They have no choice

      Execellent plan, if only they hadn't already outsourced support and R&D to India, and manufactoring to China you'd be on to a winner. I think they need to find new synergies in vertical markets to really get their ducks barking in the right direction so their senior people have the scope and time plans to have an ideas shower on how to get more money out of the company.

  4. Anomalous Cowshed

    Announcement of job cuts at Cisco

    I get to see quite a few such announcements as part of my work, so here is a proposed one:

    Dear Cisco Employee

    As you know, our company hasn't been making the returns we anticipated. Earnings for the year are stagnant at around 10 billion dollars, which is a major cause for concern. We therefore find ourselves with no alternative but to make some painful choices.

    At the moment, the company is looking to offshore production to China. This will enable us to cut costs while delivering value to the customer and to our shareholders. However, in order to achieve this major and important change in our organisation, we need to address the imbalance in our workforce.

    At the moment, Cisco employs too many engineers and programmers and too few marketing executives and managers. We have hundreds of meeting rooms which are operating at barely 45% capacity, while considerable resources are expended on engineering and R&D which are superfluous and could easily be outsourced.

    We therefore need to look at the breakdown of our human resources along functional lines and bolster the elements that we will require in order to ensure that we too can become a successful 21st century technology company, and are not left behind with an outdated 20th century organisational model.

    Because of this, we are planning to make another 4,000 engineers and programmers redundant on grounds of economic hardship. You have been chosen to be among the 4,000. We believe that your sacrifice will enable Cisco to prosper and compete in the S&P 100 with industry giants such as Apple Inc and IBM.

    We wish you every success in your future career.

    Yours sincerely

    The Management

  5. lglethal Silver badge

    Disgusting frankly...

    A $10million (100%) increase in pay for the CEO. Which would mean there would be similar percentage level increases across the board of directors and other top execs, so we can probably say somewhere in the region of $100 million in pay rises for the board, top execs, their secrateries, marketing departments, etc.

    Now lets assume that each of those people being sacked are on $50,000 a year income (probably a ridicuoulsy high average I know for the poor shlobs getting sacked, but it makes the calcs easy), so $100 million divided by that $50,000 equals 2000 workers who could keep their jobs and contribute to the company, if the upper management werent a bunch of greedy scumf%&ks.

    Someone really needs to take to CISCO management with the "Clue Bat" (i.e. a piece of 2"x4")

    1. kmac499

      Re: Disgusting frankly...

      I would suggest the Executive Clue Bat .. LIke all things Exec same idea just bigger with added extras..

      i.e. 4"x4" with nails embedded in it..

      Mind you I'm just a tad concerned that these world class CEO's, their defnition not mine, are

      1) Only motivated\compensated by money and wheelbarow loads of it, Whatever happened to job satisfaction or just plain simple pride,,

      2) Having filled the afore said wheelbarrow\skip, what personal risk are they sharing with the rest of company..

  6. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    I have every sympathy for the ex-employees...

    But unfortunately this is the way of modern corporate business and they will have to adapt.

    John Chambers new salary/bonus is probably based on a contractual term or target agreed before he commenced the role, and the filing is confirmation that he has most likely met or exceeded that target. The fact that he's done it by outsourcing to cheaper suppliers, streamlining processes, paying more on messages that encourage people to buy, and then shedding a large surplus of resource cost is nothing new, and no different to what goes on in practically every corporation anywhere.

    Agreed - it's not overly moral, not overly pleasant for the employees involved and a slap in the face for their no doubt dedicated hard work - but it is the way it is in the modern corporate world, which is also the way it has been for the last 5 or 6 decades.

    He's done his job - that's all that will matter to him. The corporation will provide profits for the shareholders and that's all that matters to them. The company will trade for another year - and that is all that matters to the execs and senior managers. So it's all all right.

    Right?

  7. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    FAIL

    "Not fast enough." Guess what? For these gueys it's *never* fast enough.

    Because the scale of their greed is literally infinite.

    BTW a measure of how costs rise and fall in an economy over time is called inflation

    So Ciscos CEO wage bill inflation rate is 100%.

    Compared to what for the general level of inflation in the US economy generally?

    Of course that still does not match Apples CFO at $64m (no doubt he'll complain about that). But then unlike Apples exec he has not demonstrated that Cisco's profits reside nowhere for tax purposes, so no one can tax them.

  8. SirDigalot

    I want to

    get a job like this for a year, the company could probably last for a year without significant damage if I just shut up and play golf all day or something.... then retire, they can fire me after a year I don't care, even after a 50% tax on the old pay, I would be still sitting pretty.

    hell I could even say fire a few thousand more people and possibly get a bonus or something, either way looking at it from the bottom of the turd-pile, 10 ( or 20) million for 1 years work does not sound half bad... I would even go so far as to say I would live away from home for that amount.

    should have tried harder in skool

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Grr.

    It's shit like this which makes people support communism (right up until the time when they get it).

  10. Triggerfish

    Amazing doublespeak

    I mean on the one hand "Were getting rid of you because we aren't making enough" and on the other "I'm awarding myself a huge payrise because we have made enough", all from the same financials for the year.

  11. tempemeaty

    Blue bloods

    Their insatiable greed, avarice and general lack of concern for any other human being a horrifying plague on this planet.

  12. Potemkine Silver badge

    4,000 to 1

    We've got the masters we deserve. Staying quiet and accepting that kind of thing won't do anything to change the state of facts.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    is there no shame

    how could one sleep at night getting this sort of pay while running a company into the ground such that 4000 people must be laid off.

    Please do the honorable thing and resign Mr. Chambers

  14. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    Never heard of "Snakes in Suits"?

    here.

    "What, me worry. Why?"

  15. The Godfather
    Facepalm

    bang,,,you're dead

    Money for nothing...there is no skill in dropping people.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like