Options often don't vest immediately, but they still are part of the package. A decision to leave before they vest would leave the executive without them, but it doesn't mean they weren't in the package in the first place.
Frankly I'm of the belief that the executives in general are greatly overpaid, mostly by the option package, but as long as the compensation committees and BOD are essentially made up of executives, all who want to see similar compensation from their companies, it's unlikely to change anytime soon. I suspect that if the executive incentive package was in any way tied to the gains made by employees, employees would gain much greater annual increases.
I frankly never could understand the idea that a country was socialist or communist and yet so many very wealthy people came from there. It's said that if all his wealth was revealed, Putin would probably be worth more than anyone else in the world.
There was far less greed when I was a kid and people who were the highest earners paid well over half of each dollar they made to the Govt. Now these people fight to not pay taxes at all, and many pay less on a percentage bases than the average wage earner. I was fine with lowering corporate tax rates, but with it, I believed all sorts of loopholes should have been eliminated, that didn't happen and some of the most profitable companies in the world pay no taxes.
If it were up to me, the entire tax code would be thrown out, and we'd start from scratch in a much simpler way. I don't believe the whole thing should be more than 100 pages double spaced in 12 font and at no more than a tenth grade level. Then it wouldn't take a staff of tens of thousands or more to administer, and the tax laws would be so simple you couldn't get bad advice from the IRS. As is, if you follow the advise from the IRS and are audited, if the advise is wrong, you still pay including any penalties they tack on, the laws are so complex even those administering them don't understand all that's in them.
There is no doubt that LP and others in management here are wealthy, but their wealth is minor when compared to the wealth of other key executives. The key isn't how much they're worth, it's how much wealth they can help shareholders to make, as long as those numbers are good, I'm fine with whatever they earn.
Gary
