The New York Times brings the science.  Just like in pricing houses, what looks reasonable in CEO compensation depends upon with what one is comparing.  Here is some actual data showing that comp committees tend to chose the higher paying company for their peer group, other things being equal.  Nice confirmation of what anybody who's had to put together one of those spreadsheets knows. 

FusionOne's sale for $75 million, $35M of which is in earn-out form, was announced earlier this week.  They'd reportedly raised $140M which would make this result less than stellar, but that $140 seems to have come from 2000.  And the current owners, who are presumably collecting that $75M aren't the ones who paid that $140M, it looks like they paid $6M.  That looks much more like a success.  Apparently when a new CEO, Mike Mullica came onboard in January of 2008, he was able to convince new investors that the previous investors money had built something that would someday be worth something. He followed that up by bringing in some coleagues from his days at Openwave and making it come true. 

Anyway, great news for them. 

Just a quick note to clarify what I now see is a bit of muddle in that last post.  I find that boards hiring CEOs frequently are happy to point out that we're in a new economy when discussing how little cash the CEO should be happy with.  My frustration is that these same board memebers seem to forget that we are in a new economy when it comes to CEO candidates consideration of the likelihood of wealth creation based on a massive exit.  Also problematic is the inclination to forget that these candidates frequently have other birds in their hands,

Via Ezra Klein I see this interesting addition, from Business Week, to the literature of CEO compensation coming from Japan.  It seems that Japanese CEOs make far less than those public company CEOs here do.  Useful data for shooting down the bogus rationalization that CEOs have to be paid 8 figures because of their uniquely rare skills, but not neccessarily relevant to the quesstion of what to pay a CEO here in a public company or, where I have more experience, in a startup.  The delicate dance of comp negotiations depends on a number of factors, but the obvious one that bears on this data is the question of what a candidate (or incumbent) thinks he or she is worth to other likely employers.  I would imagine that Japanese CEOs don't generally consider that running an american company is a high probablity option.  In other words the market for CEOs isn't really global.  For that matter theat current prices, thesupply of silicon valley startup CEOs is much more constrained than people generally imagine.  I've sat across from VC board members who were convinced that Public company CEOs who were taking home millions in cash salaries would be delighted to come work for their startups for $250K base and $100K bonus and 5% stake in owning something with a 10% chance of selling for megabucks in a few years.  Many investors will be happy to explain that it isn't 1999 anymore when it comes to valuation discussions but seem to forget that fact when it comes to finding a CEO. 

Here is an executive hiring announcement to give hope to all those Philosophy majors out there.  Atheros has brought on Dan Rabinovitsj, who got a BA in Philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin, to run their networking business unit.  That choice of major did first lead him to grad school and several years of marketing jobs at AMD.  But now at least all you toilers in the Philosophy departments can point to this positive sign for your future prospects.