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Comment by staunch | Hacker News Reader

> "Marissa Mayer is a hero for taking on the challenge at Yahoo." -Marc Andreessen

Only in the confused world of Silicon Valley is accepting $100M+ to fail considered heroic. Giving the money back would be kind of heroic.

Steve Jobs took a nearly bankrupt company and turned it into the richest company in history. And he didn't care about making money off it at all, or he'd have been the richest person in the world too. That's heroic.

Elon Musk put 100% of his personal fortune into risky world-changing startups. That's heroic.

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> Steve Jobs took a nearly bankrupt company and turned it into the richest company in history. And he didn't care about making money off it at all, or he'd have been the richest person in the world too. That's heroic.

Well, let's walk that back a bit. Saint Jobs always cared a great deal about his ownership stake in Apple, to the point where he burned bridges in order to retain and increase it. He wasn't exactly poverty stricken, either.

> "Apple's market (capitalization) has risen from less than $2 billion to over $16 billion under Steve's leadership since his return to the company two and a half years ago," Apple board member Ed Woolard said in a statement.

> "Steve has taken no compensation thus far, and we are therefore delighted to give him this airplane in appreciation of the great job he has done for our shareholders during this period," Woolard said.

http://www.cnet.com/news/apples-jobs-gets-jet-shares-in-bonu...

He later demanded backdated stock. A lot of it. And he got it. He also demanded the jet.

Which is about like you or me demanding an extra roll of toilet paper in the restroom.

Not sure what's the point. Who needs compensation when you hold several billion dollars in stock?

> Only in the confused world of Silicon Valley is accepting $100M+ to fail considered heroic. Giving the money back would be kind of heroic.

THANK YOU!!!!

It's pure insanity. Not only have we reached the point where entrepreneurial reward for managerial risk has become the norm, but you can get it while FAILING MISERABLY!!!

No, she will be hauling in around $1 billion over 4 years.

The Yahoo! ex-CEOs is known as a billionaire's club.

>Steve Jobs took a nearly bankrupt company and turned it into the richest company in history.

Ahem: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company

not seeing how/where this refutes the OPs claim. Can you be more specific?

I think GP is stating that the East India Company was, inflation adjusted, the wealthiest company in history (not Apple).

And they would be wrong. Probably got it confused with the Dutch East India Company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company

Agreed -- just trying to explain the logic :)

Oops

I guess if you want to consider a company that had a major hand in slavery. But if you restrict yourself to modern times you find:

Apple just completely crushed its Q1 earnings, delivering its most profitable quarter ever — and the most profitable quarter for any company during any quarter in history.

[source:] http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-earnings-most-profitabl...

> a major hand in slavery.

How do you think those phones are made.

Their moral standing doesn't have anything to do with their wealth. 'In History' naturally has to include companies going back hundreds of years.

> Elon Musk put 100% of his personal fortune into risky world-changing startups. That's heroic.

I wasn't aware that Elon Musk put in 100% of this personal fortune in his ventures. Source?

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-elon-musk-overcomes-chall...

"In 2008, struggling Tesla nearly collapsed during the financial crisis. When Tesla needed cash to fund the Model S, Musk chose to bankrupt himself — giving up the money he earned from his success with PayPal — rather than let it die. He sunk his last $35 million into the company, the New York Times reported."

In the meantime, at SpaceX, Musk and top executives had spent most of December in a state of fear, but on Dec. 23, 2008, SpaceX received a wonderful shock. The company won a $1.6 billion contract for 12 NASA resupply flights to the space station. Then the Tesla deal ended up closing successfully, on Christmas Eve, hours before Tesla would have gone bankrupt. Musk had just a few hundred thousand dollars left and could not have made payroll the next day.

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-elon-musk-spacex/

>> "Marissa Mayer is a hero for taking on the challenge at Yahoo."

i already imagine the spin here in the 2028 Republican primaries :)

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