[mistermann]

I don't know, I would say it's certainly debatable. Would things really be that different had he not been there? Could someone else done a similar job for say, only $50 million (and the same compensation due to options)?

I don't have any particular opinion in this instance, but discussions of this nature seem to be forbidden for some reason.

[SoftwareMaven]

I don't think you can second guess like that, since there is no way to answer the question. In a world of infinite possibilities (second guessing the past), everything is possible but meaningless.

All you can do is ask "Did he accomplish his job in such a way as to deserve earning $100M over the course of 10 years?" I think the answer to that is probably yes.

[jacquesm]

> In a world of infinite possibilities (second guessing the past), everything is possible but meaningless.

But we don't actually live in a world with infinite possibilities. It's easy to think that we do but in practice our possibilities are circumscribed in many ways.

Who knows, without knowing exactly which decisions that Schmidt made led to which gains for google it is very hard to point out if this is due to his presence or not. On the whole the company is much better off than when he joined but it seems strange to lay all the credit for that at the door of the CEO, lots of people at google played a role in that and I'm pretty sure they won't be compensated to match if they decide to step down.

[Andrew_Quentin]

I think that should be rephrased to:

"Did he accomplish his job in such a way as to deserve earning 6 billion over the course of 10 years?" Seeing as he has a 9.6% share of the company which he has acquired over the past 10 years as reward I suppose for the job he has done.

And then you can ask, did he deserve a 100 million gift on top of the 6 billion.