MySpace’s Tom Gets $500k Per Year to Stop Coming to Work | Hacker News Reader

MySpace’s Tom Gets $500k Per Year to Stop Coming to Work

mashable.com

39 pointsempone14 comments

This looks like a slow severance to me.

In exchange for his salary reduction, he agrees to not close his profile and remain an "ambassador" to the service? If you ask me, it just sounds like they're trying to keep some decent PR going in the face of some serious adversity.

This seems like bad PR considering all the people they have fired.

I would venture to guess the average MySpace user has no idea about the people they have fired. They'd certainly notice if something happened to Tom though.

You seem to be correct, they can't replace Tom as the default friend. They'll have to do something really clever for that to happen ...

The other day I was talking to my friend and she was telling me that facebook suck's because it does not support layout changes and allows auto music play as soon as you load the page. So, in the process I told her about the layoffs and Facebook has crossed over Myspace in terms of monthly visits... she was totally surprised.

>they can't replace Tom as the default friend.

They could make it Rupert Murdoch!!!

Tom Anderson doesn't even run the "Tom" account. In fact, Tom's entire identity on the site is mostly fictitious, complete with a falsified age. He's pretty much a figurehead, all they're paying him for is to avoid making any negative press about "MySpace fires Tom" or something like that.

> ...what became the world’s top social network, only to see it lose its edge under News Corp.

I think it's fair to blame acquirers in many cases, but based on MySpace's history they may have done better under News Corp than they would have done independently.

I don't think the founders would be to concerned, they made there millions.

It wouldn't have done much better solo unless they had seriously changed there engineering and removed all the backwards compatability.

Talk about out-of-this-world salaries...

Just curious, why did I get downvoted for that?

Yes, it was snarky but how are these salaries ($7.5mio and $500k) not out of this world? I'm not after myspace in particular here.

So, as my question also gets downvoted I can only guess I touched a sore point anyhow. Too bad none of the downvoters feels obliged to explain how such salaries are justified. Especially in a company that is currently writing off in the billions.

I didn't downvote you, but given that Tom is a name and profile recognized by millions of people, the fact that he's paid such a small amount to stick around is surprising. Other than that, NWS is a private company. If you think they're overpaying people, short the stock, bank your profits, and use that as proof that you know more than Rupert Murdoch about how to run a media company.

Well, thanks for at least providing some insight into that mindset.

The "small amount" part (wrt 500k annual) is what I just don't get into my head. I doubt that millions of people care about Tom. I doubt that myspace would lose upwards of 500k per year if he went away. But you are ofcourse right, I am not Rupert Murdoch and my observation that myspace is tanking is merely from the frog perspective.

Well, after the Casual Friday incident it makes sense...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com