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Comment by Hydraulix989 | Hacker News Reader

Why wouldn't they comp this guy more? He clearly has a penchant for pulling money out of a hat.

On the flip side, why wouldn't he just volunteer, given his stated true intentions?

For the same reason why people are against high level government officials anywhere getting pay raises. The public perceives it as a waste of money and believe that public servants should be solely motivated by the work and not the money. People forget that paying people who have significantly disproportionate power well makes them less likely to be tempted by outside influences.

The second is because that looks very weird and improper. It's a government job and the person who works gets compensated. Not taking a salary would make his tenure and situation even more abnormal. It also sets a bad precedent for potential future holders of the job.

The better option would be to accept the salary and donate it alongside the fortune he has vowed to give away.

> For the same reason why people are against high level government officials anywhere getting pay raises. The public perceives it as a waste of money and believe that public servants should be solely motivated by the work and not the money. People forget that paying people who have significantly disproportionate power well makes them less likely to be tempted by outside influences.

Interestingly, that's part of the reasoning why Singapore pays ministers millions per year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Singapore

> People forget that paying people who have significantly disproportionate power well makes them less likely to be tempted by outside influences.

630k ought to be enough for anybody.

> The better option would be to accept the salary and donate it alongside the fortune he has vowed to give away.

And this exactly what Trump did, for example. He considered he was rich enough, so every trimester he donates his salary to a different ministry, once it was the General Surgeon, another time it was the DHS, or the Department of Agriculture. The list is here: https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/12/13/president-trump-salar...

Well, it is exactly what he has claimed to do, but given his history with truth, it's highly unlikely.

Source? You can accuse him of whatever else you want, but here, it’s hundreds of thousands of dollars of payments that have happened in reality and can be cross-checked by journalists. You are literally claiming a past event doesn’t exist « given his history with the truth ».

A man can do the best action possible and still be told it didn’t matter.

> can be cross-checked by journalists.

"To be clear, this list documents announcements — not receipts — of Trump’s donations."

"We contacted the Department of Treasury to find out if documentation for any such deposits is publicly available and have yet to hear back."

Even if you don't need the money, from personal experience, volunteering is a bad road to go down. For better or worse, money is equivalent to respect, and without an income, you garner no respect.

What astonishes me is that anyone would want run this fund for a long period of time who isn't already very wealthy. When your boss of a two pizza team is earning more than the head of a 1tn fund, you know things are fucked up.

Compensation should be in the tens of millions, at the very least. Unless of course some egalitarian image is more important than the money that the entire country depends on.

I'm a Norwegian and I suspect they don't want to put the compensation higher because of public perception within Norway. If someone was pulling 10 mln USD from the public purse I can guarantee the left leaning press would have something to say about it.

I think it's fair anyway. This guy is already loaded, he doesn't need the extra millions. The prestige and power that comes with the position should be motivation enough.

When your boss of a two pizza team is paid more than $600k they are probably overpaid?

He seems very capable and is ready to work for that (still good) money. Do you think paying someone tens of millions would improve results for the fund? Why should it?

It's about supply and demand. If he really is the best person for the job, then there's nothing to be gained from paying him a higher fixed salary. But if there's someone else who's even marginally better that you can get for $10M, it's probably easily worth it - for the size of the fund, one person's pay is a negligible amount.

That's pure theory. How do you know who is marginally better?

That's the fundamental problem of hiring: you have to make educated guesses about who is going to make a better employee. And you should be willing to pay more to hire someone who you believe is better. For some companies, salaries are such a small part of their revenue that it makes sense to offer some candidates a lot more... and if your first choice happens to accept a lower salary, it doesn't really matter - you've saved a drop in the bucket.

What you're essentially saying is that there's no other person on earth that could generate better returns for the fund. The likelihood of that being true is vanishingly small.

No, I'm saying you can pay as much as you want, you cannot know which person will generate the best returns. What's your process for picking the person?

You could say the same thing about literally any job. Do you really think that paying more money doesn't find you better candidates? Do you think everyone should have the exact same salary and never get any raises?

Think about the logical conclusion of your assumptions. It doesn't make any sense.

You cannot take an argument I make at the extremes and apply it to the whole salary curve. It's way easier to predict performance at the lower, middle and even reasonably higher salary ranges. If you believe otherwise I'd like you to tell me about the process of determining the future success.

> Compensation should be in the tens of millions, at the very least. Unless of course some egalitarian image is more important than the money that the entire country depends on.

Or unless that is your opinion being tacked onto a whole country which values things differently than you.

So far the fund has done fine without needing to inject an ultracapitalist in their ranks to pump up a US$ 1tn fund even faster. For the Norwegian people it's better to have stability and some semblance of morality while administering these funds than pure and sheer cash. Your values are just different than what the Norwegian sovereign fund is about...

I agree and also think it's stupid to think you'll get better leaders by paying huge salaries. Would you rather see Ken Lay manage this fund?

So you don't think talent is attracted by higher salaries? Should everyone's salary just be the same, forever?

Would you yourself not switch a job because they offered more money? What you're saying doesn't make any sense.

No, but salary is an s-shaped curve. The higher you go, the less the additional benefit, if any. It totally does make sense, because you reach levels where differences in performance cannot be predicted at all. It's naive to believe otherwise.

> why wouldn't he just volunteer

Maybe not as applicable in this case as it's a position where one expects someone to be used to handle lots of money. But expecting someone to do government leading work for peanuts can have the unintended side effect of only having upper class pursue it. Like unpaid internships where only the already well-off can afford to do it.

Your second question answers your first. And a reasonable answer to your second question is: it's not that much money in the grand scheme of things, and there's a certain value in doing things exactly by the book and with no ad hoc special handling.

If the guy really wants to work for free, he can just donate his salary back to the government or some charity.

Eg in the US you can use https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.h...

In Germany https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staatsverschuldung_Deutschland... tells you how to contribute.

I imagine Norway has a similar mechanism, but I don't speak enough Norwegian to figure that out quickly.

It doesn't sound like he has much room to pull money out of a hat in the position. The moves he can make are pretty limited.

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