[jampekka]

> What is justifying Mozilla Corporation CEO Mitchell Baker's salary?

The same thing that is justifying obscene salaries in general. A circle of greed where obscenely paid people decide what obscenely paid people should be paid.

[digging]

I will say in their defense, they have a legitimate argument.

Offering a low-paying CEO role means you'll attract lower quality CEOs. The best CEOs have personal incentive to take the highest paying jobs. This element of competition does exist.

However, this ignores a few factors.

1. Mozilla don't seem to have a great CEO despite the pay.

2. Self-interest and CEO skills are not necessarily tightly coupled. They could be orthogonal. So a great CEO might be willing to take lower pay, especially a CEO that might be great for a company that is itself forgoing disgusting amounts of (ad) revenue in the interest of ethics.

3. (Not Mozilla specific but it's important to mention when this comes up) Decent regulations capping CEO pay would in fact remove this entire element of competition, freeing up companies from having to decide how much profit to sacrifice on the altar of business gods.

[triceratops]

> Offering a low-paying CEO role means you'll attract lower quality CEOs

Maybe in the private sector.

> The best CEOs have personal incentive to take the highest paying jobs

It has to be said again: in the private sector.

Non-profit CEOs shouldn't expect to be compensated as well as their private sector counterparts. The feeling of doing good is part of the reward.