Billionaire Bill Gates says Wall St pay too high

[Joanne98]

Source: Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bill Gates said on Wednesday he believes Wall Street pay is "often too high" and that U.S. government ownership of American International Group Inc worries him because it has devalued the giant insurer.

The billionaire Microsoft founder, who retired in 2008 to concentrate on philanthropy, blamed a 1993 U.S. law that capped executive salaries at $1 million and warned that further bids to try limit Wall Street pay could also backfire.

"It was a bad milestone in controlling executive salaries when that $1 million cap went on," Gates told a discussion on philanthropy at the 92nd Street Y cultural and community center in New York City.

"The compensation problem is a very interesting problem. I do think compensation is often too high, but it's a very tough problem to solve," said Gates, who was also ranked by Forbes on Wednesday as the 10th most powerful person in the world


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5AB0KL20091112

[DJ13]

1. A man worth $50 billion talking about excessive pay

Oh that ought to convince people.
:eyes:

[TheWraith]

2. He got that through stock, though, not pay.

And he actually worked for it, unlike most of the Wall Street people.

[DJ13]

3. And he actually worked for it

Nobody "works" hard enough to "earn" that much money.

[Rabrrrrrr]

7. He didn't "earn" that money - that's how the world has decided to value his portion of the company.

Seriously, why do people have such a difficult time understanding the difference between salary and value of assets?

For fuck's sake, your assets are likely worth more than you make a year - maybe I should call you a pile of fetid human garbage because of it. How dare you own anything of value! How un-liberal of you! How unprogressive!

:eyes:

[amandabeech]

57. Doesn't he value his stock by the price of the stock on the market?

I don't think that he gets to decide the price of that.

[DissedByBush]

13. Of course they do

If 30 years of work gets you $50 billion, then you worked hard enough for it.

The buyers of his product placed a value on it, and that is how much his work was worth. For all his faults, the man did have a hand in revolutionizing the PC industry.

That is unless you subscribe to some economic theory that a doctor should get paid as much as a horse stall shoveler.

If someone invented a device that could easily sequester carbon in massive-enough quantities to reverse everything put out since the industrial revolution in only 20 years, how much would his work be worth? Would you think it unfair if he made $100 billion off of it? Did he not work hard enough for that money? Considering alternate plans to battle global warming have price tags in the trillions for the world's economies, it seems quite a deal to me.

[DJ13]

16. Then by your reasoning Wall Street's "pay" can never be too high

[Rabrrrrrr]

17. Seriously, get an economics book.

You really need to learn the difference between "pay" and "value of assets".

[DissedByBush]

23. Of course it can be too high

If you're getting paid $100 million in pay and bonuses while your company's going down the tubes.

But what are you worth if you are making your company $5 billion a year?

$100 million almost seems like a slap in the face for what you made the company.

Put it in numbers you might better relate to.

Your performance at your company makes your company $1 million a year and they pay you $20,000 a year in pay and benefits.

Do you think you should get more than $20,000 a year? That's the same ratio as above.

Your management sounds pretty greedy if it's making $980,000 a year off of you and letting you have a paltry $20,000.

You might just take your talents and branch out on your own, eying that full million dollars a year that you have enough talent to generate.

So might the guy who is only making $100 million a year while making his company $5 billion a year.

Don't be surprised if they pay him more to keep him.

[Ghost Dog]

26. Guess he did some work. But essenially he stole

other peoples' ideas.

[DissedByBush]

28. Not so much

His main great idea was to buy and then license DOS to IBM and keep the rights to himself. It all naturally followed after that.

Then there was the anti-trust thing. But I don't think that made him much more money than he would have had otherwise.

But Bill did do some good work as a programmer before Microsoft got big.

[phasma ex machina]

27. Billiam "worked" Watson's legacy ...

[Vidar]

36. He stole for it--notably from Apple & the inventor of DOS who he swindled for $50,000.

[WriteDown]

48. And Apple stole it from Xerox....

Time to cut them a check I suppose. :eyes:

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. Jesus, it only took one post for the silliness to start...

being worth something is not at all related to being pay -

Gates is worth a lot of money ON PAPER only because he owns a lot of stock in Microsoft, and that's how investors have decided to value microsoft at this time. They used to value it a lot more. In the future, they might value it at zero, and then Gates will be almost without assets.

Gates' SALARY - that is, the money he earned and was paid BY Microsoft - was never very high as far as CEOs go, pretty much under $1 million a year.

Sorry to burst your self-righteous bubble, but a person's net worth is in no related to one's actual income. I know, you hate to hear it, but that's economics for you.

[DJ13]

6. So stock compensation isnt pay in your world?

lol

[Dreamer Tatum]

9. Does it matter to you at all that he started the company? That's it's, oh, HIS, in large measure?

Probably not. Man, DU is a barrel of pretzels. Just when you thought no one could possibly defend Wall Street...

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. Crazy, isn't it? But then, the economic literacy of Americans is just about nil.

And liberals, sadly, have a tendency to prefer their own knee-jerk hyper-emotionalistic self-righteous assholery when it comes to "rich" people, much as the righwing have a similar reaction to poor people.

[Dreamer Tatum]

19. You definitely need a program to tell which rich people are entitled to be rich

Bill Gates evidently does not deserve to be rich. George Soros, by contrast, who made his money in precisely the same way alot of "evil" Wall Street people make their money, is perfectly entitled to be rich somehow. Likewise the outgoing Gov. of New Jersey is somehow granted a pass, despite making his money at Evil, Inc.: Goldman Sachs.

Oh well. At least it's funny sometimes.

[Ineeda]

39. Let's not forget Al Gore

who's been criticized for investing in, and making money from, 'green' endeavors. I say, good for him.

[junior college]

54. Wow. You know so much.

[DJ13]

12. Just when you thought no one could possibly defend Wall Street..

Stock options is a Wall Street created ploy to enrich both the investment houses and the executives at listed corporations.

Do you think Gates wasnt really "paid" just because the bulk of his fortune was in options that vested into stock (which has mostly sold already)?

Im not the one defending Wall Street, you are.

[Dreamer Tatum]

14. That's just fucking stupid

Try to get this: Bill Gates FOUNDED Microsoft. As such, he was entitled to OWNERSHIP of the company.


Not options. OWNERSHIP.


Good LORD.

[DissedByBush]

24. Stock options just for executives?

Stock options are common for regular employees in the tech sector.

I was offered stock options as a large part of my compensation package when I was being recruited by a tech company. I'm not even middle management.

Stock options directly tie your compensation to the value you create for the company.

It would be nice if these fat execs got paid entirely in stock options.

They'd effectively get nothing if they drive the company into the ground.

[Rabrrrrrr]

10. I don't remember Gates ever being compensated with stock.

He started the company, and declared 51% (or whatever amount) to be his, and, as far as I remember, that's the only time he got stock in the company - because, you know, it's HIS. And over the years, he's given away billions of dollars of it to foundations that help people.

The bookstore and library are full of books that will help you understand how money, corporations, stocks, and all that stuff works.

[RoadRage]

15. And he has almost every cent of it set to be donated after he dies..

Yeah.. what a jackass. :eyes:

He & Buffett might be rich.. but unlike most silver-spooned Billionaires, they actually have a huge charitable foundation set up that helps the poor in both the US & abroad.

Sorry - but I really hate the "Anyone who makes money is an asshole" routine that the left likes to play.

[12string]

18. Bill Gates

I can say one thing for Gates.He gives a lot.Mr.Gates' foundation paid to send all three of my sons to college.At 10K a semester just for tuition that is nearly a quarter million.

[RoadRage]

43. He was trying to set up our entire public school system

with Teacher Rewards.. financing bonus checks for student improvement... unfortunately our School District also had to put up money as well (1/2) - and after getting to the top 4 schools to be considered, they dropped out when they realized they didn't have the funds to match the Gates Foundation.

Bummer too.. we were a shoe in. I live in Omaha (home of his buddy Warren Buffet) who was pulling for us.

[nyy1998]

21. Agreed

The assumption that every rich guy doesn't deserve his money and is by default evil gets really old after awhile.

[JerseygirlCT]

45. +1 nt

[Sarah Ibarruri]

4. You've GOT to be kidding me, right? LOL! nt

[tomm2thumbs]

8. oh dear, now where did I put my bag of irony (looking behind the Rolls Royce) /nt

[David Zephyr]

55. bag of irony.

LOL.

[BlueJazz]

20. SOMEBODY had to be on the ground-floor when the computer revolution started.

He just happened to be the one and the Guy shares the wealth with a lot of the populace.

Hell..if I invented and marketed a Transporter the could move organic and inorganic molucules
to far off places, I'd be filthy rich also and you couldn't say that I wouldn't be entitiled to my opinions about life and the workings of the planet.

[jaybeat]

22. Good grief: how about some basics?

1. Anybody who's as rich as Bill has somthin' smelly goin' on. In Bill's case, he basically swindled the original inventors of DOS and screwed them royally when the million$ started rolling in. Google the details if you care.

2. Bill did not "make" Microshaft what it is. (Good, Bad or Monopolistic.) The *wealth* that he, Paul Allen and a few others lay disproportionate claims to was created in large part by the employees, who, mostly, worked for their fixed salaries and went home. If they were lucky, they too got options, but only in sprinklings compared to the dump-truck loads received by the mucky-mucks. Many had the bad luck to be contractors, who were found by courts to be employees, only just not treated as such. And that's the problem with how most "economics" are calculated under our current system. Very few corporations are in fact employee-owned. But the wealth of all corporations *is* employee-generated. Productivity over the last 20 years? Up more than any other time in history. Corporate profits and shareholder equity? Ditto. Employee wages? Er, not so much. Flat, well, down in real dollars, actually. That's something that's WAY rotten, and not just in Denmark.

3. Microshaft has been shown, over an over again, to engage in anti-worker, anti-competitive and generally nasty corporate conduct for virtually its entire existence. (See the DOS story for the bad-old-days; EU sanctions for the bad-new-days.) They've basically screwed anyone and everyone (especially including their customers) to get to the top. So, yeah, Bill's not exactly Mom Theresa here--mildly unhappy with executive compensation while bending over bass-ackwards to place the blame on government regulation? Cry me a river. And all the charitable-foundation largess on Earth ain't gonna get you though the pearly gates, Bill, when your heart is black, mean and selfish.

4. And before anyone tries to canonize Bill and Mel, take a look at what they fund. A lot of it is *extremely* agenda-driven, promoting Bill's pseudo-libertarian every-nerd-for-himself pseudo free-to-steal from the market ideology. Oh, and they never miss an opportunity to make sure that any schools or other entities they support get hooked to the MS addiction wagon--no open source or Apple allowed!

[Dreamer Tatum]

25. You mean, the basics of your bitter agenda? Thanks. Got it. nt

[girl gone mad]

30. It may be bitter, but that doesn't make it false.

Gates essentially won the OS lottery and he did it by screwing other people over.

[Dreamer Tatum]

31. Heh. Name me a millionaire whose farts don't stink, please, let alone a billionaire. nt

[boppers]

29. Programmers screwed by gates:

All the people who worked on:
QDOS
CP/M
Lotus 1-2-3
OS/2
VMS
X Windows
Mozilla/Netscape
TCP/IP
Apache
PHP
Java
(We're in the millions of people, already...)

Basically, everything Microsoft ever "made" was a ripoff of other people's ideas and code, and then re-marketed, and locked in, with predatory pricing.

Before Gates, home user software was often free. Once he completely screwed up the industry, it's taken us a good 20 years (so far) to fix it, and build up replacements.

[comtec]

35. Before microsloth there was no standarization

whatever else you can say about gates (and lord there's loads good and bad) he DID standardize the industry.

I don't know if you're old enough to remember (I AM), but there was no standard hardware, software, or OS back then
Everything was FFA!

The closest was the MAC, and Commodore systems. but they were universes unto themselves, like every OTHER computer company at the time.

If you made software, you have to REBUILD IT for EVERY platform you wanted it to run on!

It was a genuine mess. Great if you were a teach head like me, but horrible if you just wanted to do stuff.

Microsoft changed that. Windows is so far from the superior product (Geos anyone?), but like everything else, it wasn't the BETTER product that one, but the one better MARKETED that won.

Give microsoft some credit... they have bought whole sale, at least as much as they have stolen out right.

Windows, btw was NOT stolen from Apple....literally they BOTH STOLE IT FROM XEROX A THE SAME TIME!

ALSO... everyone in that company got shares. EVERYONE! There's not one person who worked for microsoft in the old days that is not a multi millionaire or billionare.

That was the entire concept behind silicon valley... we don't pay you what you're worth, but we give you stock options instead. If you like yo u, we simply give you stocks in addition to options!

Yes microsoft is a fucking evil company now (unless you're "in" then it's heaven) but that's because it got big and corporate. MS for 20 years was THE company to work for, evil or not.

I don't like MS. I've never liked MS (ok i loved DOS) I grew up seeing first hand their evil ways.

But you don't seem to be talking from a position of actually knowing what you're talking about. it's just hyperbole.

one last point. And this one is why i can never totally hate Gates... he really is a hard worker. and smart, and frugal. Literally he REFUSED to buy a corporate jet, and always flew coach when he needed to fly. He's point "You don't get there any faster"

mind you he's a tiny guy who probably isn't bothered by the lack of breathing space (back then it was much better).

he was literally forced into a corporate jet by the stock holders (the true root of all evil now a days).

So before you start attacking MS, and gates, ad homonym, consider that he often does say something wise... despite his company's evil actions.

God help me I just defended the evil empire and lord of the microsith!

[boppers]

38. Dude, were you born in the 30's?

IANA predates Gates. As does ARPANET... and a whole stack of what we now call the "internet".

You seem to have a clue about the 80's IT wars. Your beer is on me.

[comtec]

40. How many brands of personal comptuers were there before MS-DOS

and how many of the software written worked on other systems?

How many computers are inter-operable today?

I can write ONE piece of code, on any computer, and have it run on nearly any other today with no modification.

hell I can compile that on one computer and have it run on nearly any other computer.

MS standardized the system, like them or not.

[boppers]

41. So, your 7-bit FORTRAN works?

Oops, no.

[WriteDown]

50. What a great post.....

Cheers!

[fascisthunter]

53. Microsoft rips everyone off

it's how they do business, and people like Bill Gates Jr. made it acceptable.

[WriteDown]

49. You're right....

Just look at George Soros, Ted Turner, Al Gore, Steve Jobs. Scum of the Earth.

[amandabeech]

58. Big-time outsourcer and big time abuser of temps.

He is also supporting charter schools indiscriminately.

He is not one of my favorites.

[onehandle]

32. Hey, Bill. Your loser college roommate is overpaid.

Fire Steve Ballmer and watch your stock rise.

[Puppyjive]

33. Could Windows possibly be any cheaper?

It is the profit margin that is killing this country. I got a phone call from a niece who is struggling to stay in college. She needs Microsoft Power point for her online course. Here is the problem: SHE CAN'T AFFORD IT. The owners of Walmart are exploiting foreign workers so that they can sell a shirt for $3.00 on the clearance rack. And someone who is paying outrageous rent will buy the shirt because it's all they can afford. Wall Street has been taking advantage of all Americans in the country. You can lose money, but their still going to make money. They need gold shower curtain rods instead of plastic ones, because they deserve it. They are highly educated from an Ivy League college and they are worth every penny they make. When I get my quarterly statement that has been raped by Wall Street, it's time EVERY STATE taxes the mother !@#$%&'S fees and returns some money to the states of the hard working people who really earned the money. It's all about greed in this country. Plain and simple.

[comtec]

34. Open Office 3.0 has a great PP program

It creates, opens, and saves as Power Point.
i think it's called presentations.

She should also be able to get an older copy (for a hell of a lot less) at a 2nd hand computer shop. Sometimes even good will has old office versions for sale.

That's going the legal route anyway.

[QC]

42. Tell her to google "Ultimate Steal." n/t

[WriteDown]

51. Possibly...

But piracy is rampant and software loses its value VERY quickly. There are usually cheaper student versions though.

[high density]

52. Most colleges sell discounted versions of MS software in their bookstore

Discounted electronic copies may also be available for academic use. The college IT help desk might be able to send her in the right direction.

[muriel_volestrangler]

37. There doesn't seem a lot of consistency in what he says

He believes Wall Street pay is "often too high"; but he also thinks the problem was a 1993 U.S. law that capped executive salaries at $1 million, and warned that further bids to try limit Wall Street pay could also backfire.

So the pay is too high, but he doesn't like a salary cap (is it still in force? I haven't heard of it in all the talk about huge salaries). :shrug:

He thinks the problem is that the salary cap made the companies turn to stock options. But Microsoft was itself giving thousands of employees stock options back when Gates was running it: https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2003/dec03/1211optionstransfer.mspx

It seems to me Gates was rambling, saying whatever came into his head, and hasn'tr though this through.

[Toucano]

44. 20th Centruy Robber Barron Turned Philanthropist Full of Shit.

"It's an unnatural situation when the government owns a lot of a private company. Unfortunately there is a view that that should exist for a long term. There's some devaluation of what that asset would have been worth if it hadn't had to go through that kind of management structure. It's unavoidable," he said.

Boards composed of cronies approving outlandish compensation packages (doesn't matter whether you call it a salary or a bonus) for their frat buddies to run companies into the ground, outsource jobs, and gamble company assets like drunken sailors in Vegas is the "unnatural situation", Mr. Gates.

[izquierdista]

46. Easy problem to solve, Bill

We just go back to the 91% tax rate for incomes over $1 million.

[CreekDog]

47. That's rich!

:eyes:

[yurbud]

56. at least Gates' company makes a product--most on Wall Street make nothing but

new versions of three card monte and pyramid schemes.