How Much Should a CEO Be Paid?

That sure sounds like a simple question. It has no difficult words. It's not a compound question. It's the type that if an attorney asked a witness on cross-examination, there would be no objection as to form.

I've noticed the Occupy [Wall Street] movement and one of their major beefs is how much CEOs of US companies are being paid. On Facebook, I have seen a chart suggesting that US CEOs make on average 475 times as much as the median US worker (the data being used suggests that the median worker earns $33,840 per year) which suggests that the average CEO makes somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 to 16 million per year. That's a lot of money, but there are not a whole lot of CEOs that actually make that much. And, when the people who put together that chart did their homework, so to speak, they used compensation from proxy disclosures.

Executive compensation (and related topics) practitioners will know that this is not an apples to apples comparison. While many of the components of CEO pay do not apply to the median worker, note that CEO pay includes the value of retirement plans, for example, while median worker pay does not. Further, in the years where CEO pay, relative to the median worker is highest, this is significantly a function of prevailing interest rates on corporate high grade bonds. I'm not saying that this is the right way or the wrong way to do this, I'm just saying that this is the way it is.

But, we still haven't approached the answer of how much a CEO should be paid. So, I asked a few people who have been objecting quite strenuously to CEO compensation. They don't know either. But, the only answer that I got more than once was "less than 10 times what the average worker makes."

You know what. I know a few corporate CEOs (not real well, but in passing). And, not a single one of them would do their job if their pay was limited to less than 10 times what the average worker makes. A good CEO delivers value to a company. How much value? I don't know. Perhaps we will see as we watch Apple over the next couple of years in the post-Steve Jobs era.

Should a CEO earn more than 'talent'? In my opinion, generally a good CEO should earn more. They have larger responsibilities. While talent can swing earnings significantly for a segment of a business, the CEO sets the direction for the business.

So, I asked one of these people who thought that CEOs should less than 10 times what the average worker makes how much they thought that talent should make. I asked them if Lady Gaga should have made upwards of $50 million in 2010. They answered probably not. PROBABLY not! That means that there is a chance that she should earn that much, but the person who is responsible for having a recording contract shouldn't earn more than about $340,000. How about Peyton Manning. I think his football earnings for 2011 are between $10 and 20 million. Add that to his endorsement earnings and he is pretty well compensated. Is he earning that much in 2011? Does he deserve it? He's had a pretty good career, far better than most, but if he were a CEO in 2011, his compensation would be hit a lot more by his inability to do his job this year.

I know. CEOs don't get career-limiting injuries. But, in any case, it's a tough comparison to make. I don't know how much a good CEO or a bad CEO should make, but neither do the protesters. Perhaps, though, they should get a few facts straight before they present them.