That concept has always bothered me
deserved any compensation he has been given
I’m not going to get into the specifics of Mr. Roath, but this mindset that if someone has done something important then no one should ever analyze or quibble about the amount of remuneration received is just incredible to me. I respect dclarke and many others that have posted similar thoughts in the past, but it seems like an overblown sense of gratitude rather than anything related to fairness.
When looking at fair value, there are two perspectives. One is how much is the benefit worth to the recipient and the other is what cost was to the provider of that benefit. Value should be somewhere in the middle. For example, the pilot Sully that landed the plane in the river in New York. One could say that he was doing his job and therefore his paycheck is all he deserves. However he had years of training that he brought to this job that gave him skills that were beyond the job requirements and allowed him to successfully handle a difficult situation that would’ve been catastrophic in human and financial terms to the company. Therefore almost anyone would agree that he deserves a hefty bonus for his outstanding work.
Then there is the other end of the spectrum, where one could say that Sully saved the company tens of millions in lawsuits and bad press, so they should pay him a large percentage of that amount. Plus a crash may have done irreparable harm to the company going forward, so he should get a boatload of stock options every year because without him, the airline might have gone under. Finally there are the hundreds of lives he saved. Shouldn’t all the survivors pay Sully 10% of their earnings for life - if they had the choice of dying or paying 10%, which would they have chosen? Most people will look at the last sentence and say that it is stupid. That’s because they can imagine themselves being a surviving passenger and it would be a huge burden to lose 10% of their income. However when it is a big, faceless corporation and the money is not coming directly out of one’s pocket, people seem reticent to ever say “enough”.
If one wants to make a calculation and come up with a number, even if it is one I consider extravagant, I can respect it because there is some rationality to it. The attitude of “whatever they got/get is okay with me” is one that will always bother me.
