[8960] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: ANS Salaries
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Karl Denninger)
Tue Dec 14 00:07:24 1993
From: karl@mcs.com (Karl Denninger)
To: cook@path.net (Gordon Cook)
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 23:04:18 -0600 (CST)
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9312132046.aa03723@pandora.sf.ca.us> from "Gordon Cook" at Dec 13, 93 08:46:55 pm
> There has been conversation tonight about high salaries paid by ANS. Here is
> the publically available ANS salary data from ANS's Form 990 covering the year
> October 1 1991 to September 30th 1992. The first column is the time devoted to
> ANS. This is all that was in the Form 990 because work devoted to ANS CO+RE,
> the profit making subsidiary, is not required to be listed. But if Al Weis
> devotes 50% of his time to ANS, it seems reasonable to assume that the other 50%
> is devoted to CO+RE. The attorney I consulted in Philadelphia in June agreed
> after studying over 200 pages of ANS documents that this seemed to him be a
> sound conclusion. To the best of my knowledge none of these folk work part time
> for ANS.
[List of Salaries deleted]
Let me just say that for any professional in a company which is doing $20+M
in business these aren't outrageous salaries.
A little high, perhaps, but if that's total compensation (including options
on CO+RE, deferred things, perks, etc) it not <outrageously> out of line.
Certainly not worth making a stink about. The "techie VP" of AC Nielsen
was reputed to make (a few years back) some $500k/year - plus a Porsche
as a signing bonus. Is that an outrage? Let the owners (in that case, the
stockholders) decide. But what about a company like ANS that is held by
other <corporations>?
At the last public company I worked at I held a number of stock options
granted me in the course of employment. They aren't worth anything now,
but if the firm had prospered wildly I would be a very well-of man right now.
Is there something wrong with that? I busted my tail to do my damndest in
order to make the company succeed. I will tell you that I will grant my
employees the same kind of incentive, and I think there is absolutely
nothing wrong with it. Good pay (including legal free gambling on the
fortune of the company) is a hell of a way to get people to work harder.
Whether it is ok for a company doing service "to the public" or is registered
as a 501(c) non-profit is perhaps another matter, but I don't begrudge any
private for-profit company the right to pay its key players what it feels
they are worth.
Including MCS. :-)
Then again, those who have known me for any length of time know I'm a
die-hard capitalist :-)
--
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