Executive Compensation Quotes

• A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.

  Roald Dahl

  Freedom, Stupid, Daze

  Roald Dahl (2009). “Boy: Tales of Childhood”, p.166, Penguin

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• Increasing inequality in income distribution in this country has broader policy implications, and there is also the growing problem of perverse incentives that result from executives receiving grossly disproportionate compensation based on decisions they themselves take.

  Barney Frank

  Country, Decision, Receiving

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• The compensation of a very early success is a conviction that life is a romantic matter. In the best sense one stays young.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Success, Romantic Love, Achievement

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2010). “A Life in Letters”, p.10, Simon and Schuster

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• Other psychological theories say a good deal about compensation.

  Allen Tate

  Psychological, Theory, Deals

  allen tate (1953). “the man of letters in the modern world”

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• Too often, executive compensation in the U.S. is ridiculously out of line with performance. That won't change, moreover, because the deck is stacked against investors when it comes to the CEO's pay. The upshot is that a mediocre-or-worse CEO - aided by his handpicked VP of human relations and a consultant from the ever-accommodating firm of Ratchet, Ratchet and Bingo - all too often receives gobs of money from an ill-designed compensation arrangement.

  Warren Buffett

  Business, Bingo, Gob

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• I don't like what's going on with the executive compensation.

  Warren Buffett

  Compensation, Executives

  "Warren Buffett: I Haven't Seen As Much Economic Fear In My Adult Lifetime". Interview With Charlie Rose, www.cnbc.com. October 1, 2008.

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• Too often, executive compensation in the U.S. is ridiculously out of line with performance. That won't change, moreover, because the deck is stacked against investors when it comes to the CEO's pay.

  Warren Buffett

  Lines, Pay, Ceo

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• The great irony of executive compensation is, if you pay your employees more, you're gonna create more demand for your goods and services! Which is gonna lead to more executive compensation than if you pay your employees less and try to take all the cream off of the top.

  Anthony Scaramucci

  Trying, Demand, Pay

  ""Life Is Unfair": Talking Inequality With The Hedge Fund Industry's Biggest Cheerleader". Interview with Hamilton Nolan, gawker.com. October 5, 2015.

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• For example: (1) As if governed by Newton's First Law of Motion, an institution will resist any change in its current direction; (2) Just as work expands to fill available time, corporate projects or acquisitions will materialize to soak up available funds; (3) Any business craving of the leader, however foolish, will be quickly supported by detailed rate-of-return and strategic studies prepared by his troops; and (4) The behavior of peer companies, whether they are expanding, acquiring, setting executive compensation or whatever, will be mindlessly imitated.

  Warren Buffett

  Law, Leader, Peers

  Warren Buffett (2009). “Warren Buffett on Business: Principles from the Sage of Omaha”, p.151, John Wiley & Sons

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• TARP is funded by taxpayers, so there are many rules about how that money can and can't be used. The result: GM spends an awful lot of time checking in with the people who administer TARP over everything from hiring to executive compensation and management. For a global company, that adds up to a lot of distraction.

  Edward Whitacre, Jr.

  People, Add, Awful

  "Ed Whitacre: Time for 'Government Motors' to Hit the Road" by Edward Whitacre, Jr., www.wsj.com. September 19, 2012.

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