Most CEOs Aren’t Paid Enough

Examining the salaries of Bryan Niccol, Elon Musk, and other executives.

Aaron Schnoor
Exploring Economics

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Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Most CEOs aren’t paid enough.

That’s a hot take, and one that you might disagree with, but I’ll stand by it.

Most CEOs aren’t paid enough.

I didn’t set out to write this article to tell you why CEOs should be paid more. In fact, I originally begin researching this article to tell you why CEOs should be paid less.

Now, before I tell you why most CEOs aren’t paid enough, let me explain why I carefully used the word “most” to begin this article. Some CEOs are overpaid. Some are paid the correct amount for the value they provide.

But most CEOs aren’t paid enough.

Let me explain why, using a few examples from the real world:

Bryan Niccol (Starbucks): $113 million

Starbucks made waves through the business world recently when they announced the hiring of Bryan Niccol as their new CEO.

Niccol, who became well-known by turning Chipotle around (and also enduring an interesting social media scandal surrounding serving portions at the restaurant), will make a base salary of $1.6 million, a bonus payment of $10 million, and potential…

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