It seems excessive to me, too. However, I think that blaming Siebel for the company's stock price makes no sense at all. There is absolutely nothing in that story (or in most of the discussion on this topic here) about how good a job the CEO is doing. For instance, suppose a CEO spends all day drinking in his office and firing his best people, while the stock soars for macroeconomic reasons. Should this guy be getting a ton of money for his "great performance"? On the other hand, suppose the CEO of some other company is laying the foundation for her company's future dominance, but the stock is tanking for reasons entirely beyond her control. Should she not be getting stock options now? And if the stock goes through the roof for 6 years, and then slumps again, and she happens to sell some of that stock while the market is declining, is that proof that she's overpaid?
I didn't realize how many options Siebel was getting, and so I have found the discussion here illuminating in that regard. But a lot of the posts (and stories) sound like envy: these people are getting a lot of money right now and I'm not! Perhaps the people complaining know facts about how poorly these CEO's are performing, but if so, they aren't sharing these facts, and so I can't quite as upset as they are, since I can't tell whether or not these CEO's are really getting overpaid... |
