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Worst Tech CEOs Earn the Most Money
tappytibbins writes to tell us Baseline is reporting that in a recent look at the 100 largest tech companies they found that there was a striking correlation between the highest paid CEOs and the lowest returns. From the article: "The one-third highest performing companies paid their chief executives an average of $7.12 million--while the bottom third paid their CEOs $9.29 million. The study compared direct compensation, which includes base salary, bonus and value of stock grants. Why the disconnect? Jack Dolmat-Connell, founder and president of the firm, cites the phenomenon of 'chasing the median': Companies benchmark their executive compensation figures on peers instead of looking at factors related to performance."
That book was by Jim Collins. His point was not that companies with higher paid executives performed worse, it was that in taking a cross-section of successful companies - those with higher paid CEO's didn't necessarily become more successful.
He has written a follow-up book titled "From Good to Great" which does another analysis concerning what it takes for a company to really elevate itself above its competitors. This book was written as a prequel to "Built to Last". It also highlights the same ideals, in that money is not necessarily THE PRIMARY motivator in a company that can become very successful. Successful being that its stock price displays gains of more than 3.2 points above the market consistantly across 15 years.