compensation

Google's Schmidt gets $100 million stock award

Google's Eric Schmidt, who, the company said Thursday, will move from CEO to executive chairman in the spring, has received an award of $100 million in stock and stock options, according to a report.

Following on an initial report from Bloomberg, and citing compensation specialists and data, The Wall Street Journal called the award "highly unusual" for a sitting CEO, adding that equity awards like this are usually given to new chief executives.

The Journal said Schmidt's award, which vests over four years, is the largest in grant-dollars for a sitting CEO since Sanjay Jha, Motorola'… Read more

HP opens its checkbook for Apotheker

The new CEO of Hewlett-Packard is a Silicon Valley outsider both literally and figuratively. As a result, the board of directors is paying a bit extra for its decision to hire him.

Documents filed with the SEC today reveal that HP is paying Léo Apotheker $4.6 million to cover his moving costs from France, where he currently resides, to somewhere a bit more convenient to the company's Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters.

Besides moving costs, the documents revealed Apotheker's entire compensation package. He's getting an annual base salary of $1.2 million and a signing … Read more

Cisco doubles chief executive's pay

Cisco Systems Chief Executive John Chambers saw his compensation go from $9.2 million to $18.9 million in fiscal 2010, as the company showed signs of recovery from a recession-related slump.

The increase was the result of a rise in Chambers' stock and option awards and his cash bonus, the Wall Street Journal said Saturday, citing Cisco's initial proxy statement.

The stock and options were valued at $13.9 million, up from $6.7 million in fiscal 2009, and Chambers' salary rose 1.9 percent from last year, to $382,212. The CEO also bagged a $4.6 … Read more

It's time to rethink the C-suite

We need to rethink the traditional combination of CEO, COO, CTO, CMO and CFO. Back when companies were about routinization and optimization for efficiency and profit in stable industries perhaps this combination made sense, but in today's complex world it is woefully inadequate. As Dan Pink writes in his new book Drive, most organizations today are less based on procedural algorithms and must run on ad hoc heuristics. The tidy C-suite club of old just doesn't cut it in today's messy, disruptive, complex world.

There has been actually been quite a lot of action on this front:… Read more

Microsoft gives shareholders 'say on pay'

Microsoft's board on Friday voted to give shareholders more say in how the software maker pays its executives.

The board of directors approved a plan that calls for a vote on the company's executive compensation every three years. However, under the board's plan, the vote will be advisory in nature.

The first of the advisory measures is set to be a part of this year's shareholder meeting, which takes place November 19.

"Given the interest in executive pay, we think it makes sense to encourage more dialogue with our shareholders on our compensation approach," … Read more

Simple image converter

RawExtractor is a basic program that allows users to convert files from raw to JPEG. Although it doesn't have many features, the program's simple interface and quick results make it a great choice for users seeking an efficient way to convert files.

The program's interface is sleek and uncluttered, and it's quite obvious what users need to do to get started. Users simply select the files that they want to convert, select a destination folder and a file name, and the program does the rest. Users can select whether they want the JPEG to contain the … Read more

Ellison's salary drops to $1

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison will receive a base salary of $1 for fiscal 2010, according to a regulatory document filed Friday.

That's a decrease of $999,999 from last year. But Ellison won't exactly be starving. He is the world's fourth wealthiest person, according to Forbes.

And according to Oracle's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ellison's base pay of $1 million in fiscal 2009 only accounted for 1.2 percent of his total compensation anyway. Ninety-seven percent was in the form of stock.

Still, Ellison's new $1 base pay puts him on … Read more

Google ups director compensation awards

Google plans to start paying non-employee directors on its board in cash, just after tossing them a hefty restricted stock award.

In a filing with the SEC Friday, Google revealed that it will be breaking with tradition by deciding to pay directors not employed by the company $75,000 a year in cash and $350,000 a year in restricted stock grants. In addition, those non-employee board members (John Doerr, John Hennessey, Arthur Levinson, Paul Otellini, Ram Shriram, Ann Mather, and Shirley Tilghman) will also receive a one-time stock award worth $500,000, though Mather and Tilghman will have to … Read more

Apple: Shareholders did approve 'say on pay'

Apple said Monday that its shareholders have approved a so-called "say on pay" proposal, contrary to the results it had reported earlier.

The company informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that a filing last week "incorrectly reported the voting percentages for shareholder-submitted proposals because abstentions were counted as 'No' votes." At Apple's February 25 shareholders meeting, shareholders had seemingly rejected a "say on pay" resolution that would have let them weigh in on policies regarding executive pay and compensation.

After a recount, Apple told the SEC on Monday, it turned out that a … Read more