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Comment by Gargoyle | Hacker News Reader

I don't really mind people failing.

I do think there's something wrong with someone earning massive amounts of money to fail and then everyone saying, "Oh well, anyone would have failed in that role."

Why pay someone huge sums of money if failure is the expected outcome?

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> Why pay someone huge sums of money if failure is the expected outcome?

Because the people making executive compensation decisions are from a narrow elite class and are the people benefiting from executive compensation decisions.

Well-said. Major example: interlocking boards of directors. They clearly demonstrate cartel-like behavior where it's "us vs them" at one level protecting their personal profits and "them vs them" at another level competing for good positions, policy preferences, or market share. Unsurprisingly, it's one of ideal moves a capitalist can make in an environment like the U.S. given it gains the personal benefits of capitalism while minimizing the risk that real competition or cost minimization of labor would bring them. They must operate collectively to defeat what threatens their wealth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlocking_directorate

Example with some specifics and nice illustrations:

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/corporate_communi...

EDIT: The answers all around yours are screenshot-worthy. Perfect example of what the elites bought with all those donations/visits to universities, textbooks, biased media, and so on. Many still believe they have to earn it in a way that's about merit as an employee of the company. Thousands of years of human history showed nepotism, classism, and other rigging were main ways people got ahead. Then it suddenly is out of the equation for many analyzing success of modern elites. ;)

The "failure" is subjective. What's objective is the stock price, which has grown from $15 to $41 under her management.

As bulk of her compensation is locked in stock (negotiated at 2012 prices), it's increasingly hard for her to get compensated less while the stock has tripled in value.

all the stock growth is due to buybacks, so credit goes to Janet, not Marissa.

That may be, and you seem to have a better scoop on the internals.

I was just pointing out that there are very few YHOO investors unhappy with the stock moves 2012-2017 (when benchmarked against S&P 500 or whatever else is commonly accepted metric) compared with, for example, Eric Jackson's war against Terry Semel's (and some directors') compensation package while the stock was in consistent decline https://www.law360.com/articles/26456/advisors-oust-yahoo-di...

>Why pay someone huge sums of money if failure is the expected outcome?

Because all big C-level positions work this way? Doesn't make it a good idea, or even rational. But humans are of the rationalizing type, not actual rational beings.

The blame for compensation should be on the board, not the CEO.

I suppose, there's a huge responsibility coming with that role, and you also know your name will be stained forever. But it's something somebody has to do.

their names are never stained. she will resurface in some other high profile position in no time. these C*O's live in their own universe, where common sense and peasants' logic do not apply.

Because it wasn't the expected outcome. Or, at least, there was a chance that things could be saved. The high risk is even more reason to offer huge compensation.

We can only see in retrospect that it was doomed to failure.

What risk? Yahoo failed, but Marissa Mayer made out with millions of dollars. Seems like a no-risk endeavor to me.

The risk of her future income being depressed. The risk her compensation package mitigated by paying her millions even in the face of a perceived failure.

To attract someone who has a chance of fixing things rather than someone who is guaranteed to fail?

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