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Comment by allears | Hacker News Reader

This is supposedly a public utility, not a profit-oriented corporation. Right? Right?

PG&E ($PCG) is a for-profit corporation and part of the S&P 500.

"Most of Poppe’s compensation came from $41.2 million in stock awards, a $6.6 million bonus and an annual salary of $1.3 million"

That stock award is one big wildfire away from being worthless...

Of course. Freed from the requirement to turn a profit, they can redirect revenue to executive salaries.

Just like many of the non-profits who claim they are there to help the disadvantaged but act more like a cash cow for upper management and of course fight tooth and nail against any reform that would seek a different solution that incidentally de-emphasizes them.

PG&E is a for-profit company where the state determines the maximum they can charge for utilities.

They make their money by building and owning infrastructure (or some other fuckery I forget the specifics)

> They make their money by building and owning infrastructure

The owners make their money by dividends and stock buybacks between bankruptcies.

The company, well, two bankruptcies in less than 20 years—making money isn’t what it does, at least this millenium.

Employee compensation is an expense, not revenue or profit.

you have a misconception about what a public utility is, they are not govt run or "socialist enterprises", they are normal profit oriented corporations that shareholders buy shares in and expect a profit from. They are in industries which are regulated with regard to pricing, etc. because those industries are considered to create natural monopolies.

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