[jwilber]

Lol. A 25% cut and “my revenue is at risk” is meaningless when you make more in a year than most of your employees will even retire with.

It’s crazy we don’t hold CEO’s to the same rigorous standards as employees, despite their importance (as measured by salary) being x 100 that of the average employee. Low risk, high reward.

[DangitBobby]

It's not completely meaningless.

[jwilber]

When compared to the stress it causes for those impacted, I’m going to disagree and claim that it’s entirely meaningless. Given that most of his compensation comes from stock, losing a few 100k at most in salary is nothing.

[icelancer]

What is something the CEO could say or pay cut he could take that would make these comments not appear in a HN thread?

[Vespasian]

Nothing most likely because the fact remains that the CEOs of these companies do never face the same existential crisis as many of their employees do when loosing their job.

They can (and many probably do) put a small amount of their income into conservative boring low yield investments and still be set for Life if everything else collapses. Maybe not with the yacht, prestige or power they hoped for but still more comfortable than most of the population.

The best a CEO can do is take responsibility by making a significant financial sacrifice and not bullshit their former employees on the way out. I think this letter does it as best as possible given the circumstances but it can't bridge the gap between them and most people.

CEOs chose to be in that position and I'm sure they can handle a little criticism from the internet