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To: Percival 917 who wrote (12110)12/5/1999 7:34:00 PM
From: Mike Buckley  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 54805
 
Joel,

Regarding the co-founders' salaries and stock options as it relates to affecting our share prices in Siebel's stock.

I'll be interested in Bruce's take on this, but I really don't understand your question. If you're thinking that the stock price would be higher today if the founding officers had taken a less valuable compensation plan, there's no cause-and-effect relationship that can be established.

If you're asking if the founding officers' compensation package is too high, my thinking is that all employees participate in a market. By that, I mean that if my employer could get someone to do the same quality job that I'm doing for half the price, it should. Can Siebel Systems get someone to do Tom's and Pat's jobs as well as they've done for half the price? You get to decide.

I think the major point of the article is that, for all practical purposes, the two founding officers essentially grant themselves the stock options. In reality, the board grants them. At least they grant Tom's if not Pat's.

There are lots and lots of privately held companies doing $5 million where the CEO (the owner) makes $500,000 or more a year. In that context, I'd say that i2's CEO is a below-market CEO. That has more to say about his approach to compensation than it has to say about Tom Siebel's approach.

Last, run the numbers on the amount of dilution created by Tom's and Pat's options. In other words, see if you care.

Hope this helps.

--Mike Buckley



To: Percival 917 who wrote (12110)12/5/1999 8:20:00 PM
From: tekboy  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 54805
 
Re Siebel options (offering them, not trading them!):

Don't knock 'em, they can be a great motivating tool. This was posted on the Siebel thread a couple of weeks ago:

techweb.com

It's an article on SAP's plans to move into the CRM space, but the hysterical part comes at the end, where SAP chairman Hasso Plattner engages in some world-class whining:

"Plattner sounded off on a couple of issues that have trailed the company recently, including its Monday lawsuit against Siebel Systems for competitive hiring practices. Plattner declined specific comments because the suit is pending, but did indicate that Siebel was able to offer SAP's executives roughly $200 million worth of stock options to lure them to the front-office vendor, something SAP can't match because of its German background.

"Offering large numbers of shares to employees 'is common practice in Silicon Valley, but it's not in Europe,' Plattner said. 'I would have lost my job at the next shareholder meeting ... I cannot give a middle-management person 50,000 shares.'"

The Siebel threadsters were doubled over in laughter, both at how Siebel continued to eat SAP's lunch and how incredible it was for Plattner to admit it publicly... :0)

tekboy/Ares@youdothemath.com