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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (127166)	2/25/2003 12:37:34 PM
From: hueyone	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 152472

I don't know about the details, but Irwin Jacobs has about $1 billion in value, which came from QUALCOMM. Whether it was via salary or stock options is irrelevant. $1 billion [give or take a bit] is how much he has which the shareholders don't. So you think it is reasonable to pay just one guy in the company, not to mention all the rest of the well paid employees, a billion dollars in salary to produce half a billion dollars in earnings? Because that is all that QCOM has managed to produce so far in its entire lifetime. You seriously think this is leaving enough for shareholders? I don’t. From a privately held company point of view, the performance and pay of employees in public companies, especially tech companies, relative to the earnings they produce has truly been a joke---in QCOM's case half a billion dollars lifetime earnings on 5 billion dollars in paid in capital. Any privately held business with such costs and performance would have long since folded its doors. I wish I had generous shareholders like you invested in my privately held company. But alas, my shareholders are too sharp. They expect the company to pay back all of their paid in capital from operational earnings within three to four years of their initial investment. QCOM has only managed to earn about 10% on paid in capital in its entire lifetime, not 10% per year, but 10% lifetime, yet management is treated like heroes, and one executive has been paid more than the company has earned in its entire lifetime. And before Koplik pipes in, no I am not counting IP as earnings. QCOM has to show that they can convert this intangible asset in to real earnings and real performance. If Dr. J can turn the IP in to real earnings, take a huge chunk for himself and still leave the shareholders plenty of money in the retained earnings account, then I don't care if Jacobs earns a billion dollars. But so far the opposite has occurred. The employees have walked off with millions, a billion in Jacob's case, and there isn't a pot to piss in left in the retained earnings account for shareholders. JMO, Huey