> from the organisation's point of view, the expenditure is cheap

But from any normal person's perspective, it's expensive.

The difference is who is in control and what are their priorities and influences. Since "the organization" is making the decisions - and, completely incidentally, "the CEO" is the head of "the organization" - it just so happens that "the organization" finds that "the CEO" should be paid lavishly.

Rich people gonna prioritize rich people.

> But from any normal person's perspective, it's expensive.

Why does it matter what that hypothetical "normal" person thinks? Does that "normal" person have insight into how much it costs to hire a competent executive?

The normal person knows that just having big paycheck does not make an executive more competent. We have all seen people with huge paychecks fail spectacularly.

Are you saying there's no correlation between salary and performance?

There's no direct correlation, yes. If you took two executives (or really two people in any profession), one making 10x as much as the other, and swapped their positions, you would not see one position dropping to 10% performance and the other rising to 1000% performance. In all likelihood, they would both drop to 50-70% for a while and then stabilize to their original values.

Individual persons are not orders of magnitude more productive on their own, they're just in environments that allow them to be more productive, for example by giving them control over more resources.

It matters because "normal" people are the ones paying those extravagant salaries in the end.

Those normal people should know that $350k is a steal.

Indeed.

Only if you insist on hiring in the US – while at the same time talking all the time about how you want to fix the fact that you're underrepresented in many parts of the world, by asking some really expensive US staff to fix it ...

> if an executive paid $350k is 35% less likely to make a mistake that would cost the organisation $1m (which is about 1% of their budget), compared to a volunteer working for free, then maybe, from the organisation's point of view, the expenditure is cheap.

True, but I'd be hard-pressed to believe that's a realistic hypothetical at all.

Some of the most expensive WMF execs have been complete disasters, exiting after a year or two and leaving the entire organisation in disarray.

Maybe they should spend more than $350k and find someone more competent.

That reminds me of the saying, "We have the best politicians money can buy."

Can you provide an example?

I don't see any reason for an executive to be less likely to make a mistake. And considering that the core business is rock solid and didn't change much in last many years, I don't even see a potential for such mistake.

> It may be lavish, but if an executive paid $350k is 35% less likely to make a mistake that would cost the organisation $1m (which is about 1% of their budget), compared to a volunteer working for free, then maybe, from the organisation's point of view, the expenditure is cheap.

They're not though. Especially not multiple of them providing the same service.