IBM's outgoing boss Rometty awarded $20m+ in 2019 for growing revenue 0.1% Ginni Rometty was awarded $20.16m for her final full year as CEO, president and chairman at IBM as the organisation reported a gargantuan revenue rise of 0.1 per cent. According to the 2020 Notice of Annual Meeting & Proxy Statement, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Rometty was paid a £1.6m base salary …
In other news, non-executive IBM employees received no bonuses at all for 2019 because of the lackluster overall performance of the company. (This follows several years of laughably small bonuses).
So the rule at IBM is: if you are executive with the most influence on overall company performance, you get a bonus based on your "individual contribution". If you are a peon who can really only control your individual contribution, you get no bonus based on the overall company performance.
The rule at all companies is if you are an executive and the market improves globally (from no effort on your part), you claim it was all down to your actions, and if it falls then it's someone elses fault or just the way things are.
And the people who reward you are also executives, all on each others boards.
> So the rule at IBM is: if you are executive with the most influence on overall company performance, you get a bonus based on your "individual contribution". If you are a peon who can really only control your individual contribution, you get no bonus based on the overall company performance.
Proof, at least, that executive remuneration is not simply a form of legalised pyramid scheme - because if it were they would also get nothing.
I'm sure she was the best person for the job, but, call me cynical, in 3+ decades of experience I believe there is unfortunately no longer such a thing as meritocracy these days in many companie(exluding IBM): i.e the best person for the job, regardless of gender, sexuality, race, religion, social class, university attended...
In some roles women have massively outclassed me and the men I knew,my male colleagues, they fully deserved their positions and salary and a lot more. But once social engineering and Cultural Marxism kicks in, well we know what can happen.
Expressing my opinion, based on experience, not hating anyone or group. IBM did the right thing by chosing the best person, definitely.
I think cultural Marxism might be relevant if people suspect she wasnt the BEST choice, but she was the FEMALE choice, because "wammen" kind of thing
As cultural Marxism (amongst other things) dictates men and women are IDENTICAL, with NO differences at all and that everyone is just as good as everyone else (its ANOTHER way they have tried to sneak communism through the back door like socialism was) and its being taught like a religion in ALL major universities across the globe
So things will only get worse as more of these brainwashed snowflakes get into business and government
An ideology that claims ALL men are mysoginists and rape apologists, that the ONLY evil people on earth are first white MEN specifically closely followed by white women, and that between them those "white people" subjugate everyone else
Sounds insane? Seriously, check out places like Harvard and the race related courses they run, some of which are COMPULSORY in some universities in order to get ANY degree, even if its a technical discipline like physics or engineering
More companies are just ignoring the BEST employee for positions and are looking to the most NON MALE, NON white, non hetrosexual, non able bodied person they can to be able to tick as many "woke" boxes as possible, often regretting it when they see the work product, but then being too scared to do anything
Because a person who supports such an ideology would ONLY assume its their race, gender or disability that led to their replacement and that WHITE people were behind it, then sue
Ignoring the fact that those are ALSO why they even got a job that was above their level of expertise in the first place, ahh selective cognition at its finest :)
But still companies do it more and more because of social pressure
Yet despite it being so widespread and ALREADY affecting laws and policies people seem blissfully unaware or just too apathetic or scared of a backlash to even discuss it never mind oppose it
You are spot on, women have no business in occupying leading positions within Tech companies, since being a leader in tech requires imagination, creativity and guts.
Women don't peak in either of these, implying the company with a female in charge will lose from competitors led by men. This is exactly what happened to IBM, from being a leader until the early 2000's, towards the downward spiral they are in since over a decade.
Make a woman head of development at Ferrari, within 10 years it will be bankrupt, with a runway full of unsold pink Fiat 500 like cars outfitted with furry interiors, because they are "cute and easy to park".
That suggests that it's really a taxable benefit-- she has use of a corporate jet and corporate residences for personal (vacation) use.
Well, $1.1M won't really get all that far in a private jet if you have to factor in all the costs. Crew (ground and air), maintenance, airworthiness, fuel - it all adds up at one hell of a rate with these toys. So maybe that's exactly what it is - she got to take a few (taxable) jollies in it.
No, there is exactly one option:
First year: Write off X billion dollars. Blame predecessor for every problem (found and unknown). Collect big bonus for cleaning up.
2nd-4th year: Report brilliant numbers based on the write off. If not possible, continue cleaning up and writing-off.
5th year ...: Collect rewards or start looking for a new job. You are now officially a troubleshooter able to take the hard steps required to fix up an ailing company.
Capitalism IS economic feudalism.
Capitalism is good for capitalists
Communism is good for Communists (party members)
Monarchy is good for Monarchs
Parliaments are good for for Parliamentarians
Tyrannies are good for tyrants.
Wouldnt know who democracies or socialism are good for, probably fiction writers.. I dont think there are any real ones out there.
Rometty's package is set by the board all of whom are compensated in stock and win from stock buybacks. During her tenure she oversaw approximately $50 billion in stock buybacks:
https://ycharts.com/companies/IBM/stock_buyback .
That is hard cash going from the company to the shareholders, often at the expense of actual investment and actual employees.
The state of the company does not matter nor does any of the bs they wrote in their "justification".
The biggest problem is that corporate boards are filled by all the same people so if you want a generous pay packet at your company, you'll vote for a good one for someone else who's likely to be on your board.
That said, given the returns to "shareholders" via the various buyback schemes, this seems fairly small in comparison with comparable companies. No, I don't agree with this massive pay packets but think about the WeWork guy who got paid off for failing so much more.
That's been tried and is generally not successful because of the inherent tensions over things like longer tea-breaks and higher profit margins. Nevertheless, some degree of worker participation on the supervisory board is common in larger European companies and is generally considered an efficient way to reduce conflicts between management and workers.
How is this maximizing shareholder value?
How is excessive executive pay, huge bonuses, and gigantic golden parachutes maximizing shareholder value, especially when the company is poorly managed?
Maximizing shareholder value: One rule for you, another rule for me. Suckers!
The only way to truly maximize shareholder value over the long term is to terminate the upper echelons of manglement with extreme prejudice. Manglement is more interested in lining their pockets in a semi-legal way (just inside the law to avoid a long Club Fed vacation) at the expense of everyone else.
How is this maximizing shareholder value?
It's missing a couple of words:
"maximizing short-term shareholder value"
Most companies don't really care about anything other than current-financial year+(CFY+1) - mostl becase board compensation is predicated on current year performance.
Last time I was in a formal bonus scheme, the bonus was paid 50% up-front and 50% delayed for3 years. So if I screwed up[1] during those 3 years, I lost the deferred bonus. And, since the the toal cae to about 90% of a years wages over 3 years, it was a fair chunk to lose.
[1] Ways that you could lose the bonus were clearly delineated in thebonus scheme - leaving, being kicked out for gross malpractice were the main two.
Its obscene.
What's really fucking obscene is the amount of money being paid for failure at the expense of the workers being paid way less, many of whom the customers rely on to keep their business IT going.
You want evidence the world has gone bat-shit crazy? Well, if that isn't it I don't know what is.
20+mil for What? Really?
Honestly, the only thing these executives are good at is negotiating their contract that ensures their yearly bonus. Being measured on real growth in the company would have every one of them sitting on a street corner begging for change. They all seem to use the same management handbook. Cut staff, Cut more staff, and if that doesn't more cut more again
Personally they couldn't manage to get laid in a brothel with a fist full of fiftes in one hand and a fist full of roofies in the other, let alone a major company!
This kind of tweaks my "gggrrrrr" bone tbh (its right next to the funny bone, but its just grumpy lol)
Politically we have social political ideologies dumbed down so much its laughable, of all the literally 1000s of choices and nuances its presented to the "peasants" who vote as merely a choice between COMMUNISM and wholly unregulated capitalism,, Niether is a workable ideology
One enslaves the workers under the government, the other just gradually creeps back inch by inch to the days of workhouses and feudal lords "owning" the peasants who live on their land
Time and time again we see companies either breaking even or improving slightly in often saturated markets where any real growth is nearly impossible without a disruptive technology nobody else has
Despite this we often see companies telling the 99% of its employees who ACTUALLY earn them the money with their work being told "its a lean year, we cant afford pay rises" right before giving their directors and top executives HUGE payrises and bumps in their perks
I personally think we need a law that dictates if ANYONE gets a payrise or a perk that EVERYONE should get the exact same raises AND perks based on annual salary/wages
So Instead of giving a director a 1 million pound bonus and nobody else ANYTHING that "bonus" fund would be EVENLY distributed between EVERYONE from the cleaners to the directors and CEOs. So some might get lets say £20 whilst the lowest might get 20 pence, but thats FAIR, which is the difference
Same with pay rises, either EVERYONE gets the same % of NOBODY gets anything
I've seen and even worked for companies who plead poverty to justify no pay rises, occasionally even pay CUTS during tight times where the top people got HUGE payrises and bonuses despite the revenue stagnating
A simple law would change this in one go, but when the rich and the corporations pretty much OWN every politician via donations and other means (token board memberships being another common method) its no wonder no such rule exists
Obviously I know its NOT as simple as just one "rule of law" a sentence long, but the actual concept itself isnt that complex, ANYONE gets an X% raise then EVERYONE gets that same % raise, and bonuses also treated the same because they ARE part of someones "earnings" however you dress it up
So bonuses and perks (or their monitary value) should ALSO be distributed the same way too
I think most people would be perfectly happy with this approach because its FAIR, admittedly the top 5-10% of earners probably wont unless some of them ARENT selfish sociopaths, but hey, isnt democracy supposed to be based on the MAJORITY?
When did our democracy change to being for the elites?
In the US that was clearly in 1913, but in the UK I kind of hope its not too late and something better than we have but NOT communism, Marxism or any other "ism" which seems to be being pushed for by ALARMING amounts of people nowadays (mostly ignorant university students), however those SAME students WILL potentially end up in power some day
New
Good pay packet for introducing more leadership diversity and ethical AI!
[...]
The Compensation Committee said it also took into account her "exceptional personal leadership in several areas": this ranged from taking an "industry-leading role shaping a socially responsible approach to AI"; "record results in IBM's diverse leadership representation"; R&D in quantum computing and AI: and "preparing society for future work with new approaches in education and apprenticeships".
I just finished voting my IBM proxy statement. Let me tell you how I voted and why.
I only voted for one director, Arvind Krishna, the new CEO of IBM.
I abstained on the following because they all joined the board in 2019 or later and cannot be held responsible for the horrible management problem; They are Buberi, Howard, Pollack, and McNabb.
I voted against the remaining 9, especially Rometty, who totally failed as CEO.
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