Vice Ran Out of Money (For Everyone Except Its Executives) | Hacker News Reader

Vice Ran Out of Money (For Everyone Except Its Executives)

hellgatenyc.com

91 pointsdonohoe16 comments

A tale as old as time.

Business does well: This was the result of the executive teams hard work and they must be rewarded.

Business does poorly: Something, something, macroeconomic headwinds, the executive team must be exhausted answering questions about the businesses poor performance, let's get them a bonus.

Sort of. Shareholders can also sue you if it's obvious you're the one who really screwed up, especially if you are taking massive salaries.

So there is quite a large risk in your "business does poorly" version.

Isn't that only for publicly-traded companies? Vice Media is a private LLC.

Nope you still have a fiduciary responsibility to operate the business to the best of your ability while keeping it viable. This guarantee is made to the shareholders. Difference is that most private companies are also owned by the people who run out of business so they can’t sue themselves.

A useful reminder that salaries are about power, not value.

Corporate decision making power is value in a certain sense.

Chairman Shane Smith earned $1.6 million annually [1]. I don't think anyone should be shocked here..

1- https://www.businessinsider.com/shane-smith-divorce-vice-sal...

Seems similar to Mozilla. Shrinking browser share. Layoffs. But executives still getting paid good.

They are the ones keeping the Mozilla Foundation alive. /s

Incredibly common for the most well paid people to be the most clueless. Why? Because the people hiring them are also clueless.

Interesting article. Goes something like "We didn't get the severance we're due because the execs were paying themselves quite well and literally bankrupted the company. Also I didn't get Indigenous People's Day off."

The severity of these two things is a bit different.

“Chief People Officer Daisy Auger-Dominguez, who wrote a book on the workplace "inclusion revolution" but refused to give workers Indigenous Peoples Day off after Juneteenth made it onto the official company calendar for the first time” I feel like in context it’s clear that they more trying to point out the irony in someone wrote a book on inclusion in the workplace refusing to give workers indigenous people’s day off

So the actual producers of output don't get all the money? Shocked, I tell ya!

Vice died when it moved headquarters and its founders drank the hubris KoolAid without realizing they were dooming themselves and squandering their past hungry struggles. Even Bill Maher walked away.

These salaries for executives really don't seem that high? I mean that said the business wasn't doing well and the executives presumably weren't doing an awesome job.

I am shocked. How could this happen?

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