My take on the OP’s comment was that his salary and bonuses are controlled by the board. As Sergei and Larry have majority control he would not have gotten this without their explicit approval.

Do you think the board would object to him saying "oh yeah this looks bad since we're cutting costs, let's lower my compensation a little."

It's not like he doesn't have any agency in this.

There is no reasonable amount by which he could cut his compensation that wouldn't result in whiners complaining that "it wasn't enough of a cut".

If he's going to catch heat for it anyway, he might as well take what he's contractually entitled to.

They could set it to zero, which would be in-line with severity of laying off of 10+ year high performers or those who are pregnant or on medical leave. I'd like to see an automatic condition where layoffs trigger a requirement that the directors and officers compensation will be set to zero for the next three years. You're basically severely fucking with people's lives and this has very real consequences for those people and society in general who has to pick up the pieces.

They can definitely survive for a few years without salary too. 200M is be enough to last most people decades and more yet they get that much every year

200M is enough to last any person intergenerationally along with their children and grandchildren. Not disagreeing with you, just a point of emphasis.

You're 100% correct, honestly I was just trying not to come off as being too hyperbolic

The average tenure of corporate CEOs is what <7 years? Why the hell would you intentionally cut your pay knowing you have a short half in the gig and for doing the job you were hired to do?

how long do regular workers stay on average at a company? 7 years is a pretty long time

Most regular workers leave generally it’s on their own accord. When a corporate CEO leaves, it’s generally because they are fired.

If I am working for a company where the role I am in has a statistical likelihood that I will be fired in the near future, I am going to take every comp dollar I can get and not offer any compensation sacrifices for optics sake.

For some people, enough money is enough money and you start to think about your legacy. Or maybe your coworkers that toil for so much less. Will another $200m make any difference at all for someone with that kind of money?

Those people don't end up at the top mostly. You need a unending thirst of money and power to make it as CEO of Google and stay there. The same happens in politics actually.

> [Pichai]'s salary and bonuses are controlled by the board

That is true of any CEO pay, though.

Your argument does not negate OP's argument.

I don’t understand what OP is arguing but would be interested to find out.

Who is on the board ? Often CEOs float around between boards, they are almost never going to decrease the pay or not raise it, unlike how it works for the rest of us.

Too often correct. But in a case where Founder1 and Founder2 have absolute majority voting control, the Board is extremely unlikely to play such "obviously we'll vote to give each other raises" games. They are sitting in those cushy Board seats - or not - at 1 & 2's whim.

>Those high ratios led Apple shareholders to request a pay cut of their CEO, and that was without poor performance or firing workers.

It was also a pay cut from a TCTC (Tim Cook total compensation) high of $99 million the year before, which seems mindbogglingly high but also make him out to be a bargain in comparison to Pichai.

> the current outrage is driven by the spiking CEO pay while making significant cut backs,

Imagine CEO pay wasn't high.

They would still be reaping a huge portion of the benefit of shareholder-friendly (and less employee-friendly) policies, but escaping the blame.

Effectively, the amount of capital appreciation they've squeezed from layoffs dwarfs the CEO pay package, without any scrutiny.