[Google234]

Cut their income in half and get 1.5 million which is 0.008% of PG&E's income. Then those three SVPs will leave and you will need to hire three more which won't be cheap. How much do you think a SVP in a company making 18 billion a year should be paid? That sounds like a lot of responsibility to me and the people qualified for the job will expect to be compensated accordingly. Anyway, I doubt you would come out in the green at the end of this pointless exercise.

[Dylan16807]

How many SVPs do you need?

And what makes you think you can't find a competent manager for $250k a year?

[ericd]

Because you can get much easier jobs that pay $250k? And because jobs at that level at other big companies frequently pay much more than the current $500k, even? Basically, you're going to get outbid for the people you want.

[Dylan16807]

Being a vice president doesn't seem particularly hard, as jobs go. The 99th percentile for income is $300k, and there's no way the difficulty even approaches that percentile.

Can you name some much easier jobs that pay that much?

You'll always be outbid for the absolute best, but I see no reason you wouldn't have plenty of viable candidates when you're offering >98th percentile income for a management job.

[ericd]

Being a developer at one of the big tech companies is much easier than being an SVP in a big org, as one example. From what I've seen, you need to be extremely type A to succeed as an SVP most places.

[Dylan16807]

That might pay $150k, which is significantly less.

Also being "extremely type A" doesn't sound like a difficulty, really. And I don't see how it justifies 99th percentile pay either.

[ericd]

There’s a lot wrapped up in that statement about being extremely Type A. Like responding to emails after hours within 5 minutes. Maybe you don’t think that’s difficult, but it certainly means sacrificing a lot of your home life in a way that a lot of jobs don’t involve.

And yeah, you clearly haven’t been keeping up with dev pay scales at big companies if you think it tops out at 150k. I knew people at $300k total comp a few years out of school, and senior engineers can make far more.

[opportune]

Maybe right out of school with no competing offers

There are 24 year olds at LinkedIn and Facebook making $300k