So why is this man smiling?

Because he owns a big chunk of Netflix stock. And that stock has gotten much, much more valuable in the last 12 months.

A year ago, when Netflix was trading at $106, Hastings owned a 4.4 percent stake in the streaming video company, which was worth $265 million. Today, Hastings’s stake is up to 4.5 percent (more than half his ownership comes via options); at $215 a share, it is worth $559 million.

That is: The value of Reed Hastings’s Netflix holdings increased by almost $300 million in the last 12 months.

So he’s probably not smarting from a one-year pay cut.

Just in case he was, Netflix has boosted his 2013 pay. His salary will increase from $500,000 to $2 million, and he’ll get an option allowance of $2 million, up from $1.5 million.

If you want to see another happy Netflix shareholder, by the way, talk to Carl Icahn. Icahn accumulated a 9.9 percent stake in Netflix last fall, paying $58 a share. Today those shares are worth nearly $1.2 billion, which means Icahn is up close to $900 million in less than a year.

Zynga just filed a new 8-K regulatory document outlining revised compensation arrangements with its top tier of execs that ups the salary and bonuses, as well as restricted stock units, but ties them more closely to performance and the turnaround of the struggling social gaming company.

That is, except CEO and founder Mark Pincus, whose annual salary has been reduced to $1 and who will not receive any bonus or equity in 2013 — which is not an uncommon move for tech company leaders.

Said Zynga in its filing:

“The Company’s 2013 executive compensation program is designed to focus on two primary objectives: first, retaining and motivating our talented, entrepreneurial executive leadership team; and second, aligning our executive pay structure with company performance-based incentives. We believe that by focusing on both retention and performance, the compensation packages align with our strategy to build long-term value for our stockholders.”

The Section 16 execs impacted include: COO David Ko; general counsel Reggie Davis; Steve Chiang, president of games; Barry Cottle, chief revenue officer; CTO Cadir Lee; and CFO Mark Vranesh.

Interestingly, most of their salaries — which are about double their previous compensation — are now $500,000 for all, except Vranesh and Davis, who will earn $425,000.

Possible bonuses of zero to 200 percent of their cash salary, as well as the same level of stock grants from 970,500 to 1.8 million shares each, are tied to the performance of Zynga games, expanding the network and certain adjusted EBITDA levels. The RSUs vest over four years and nothing will be paid until February of 2014, after performance targets are met.

Zynga, whose stock has largely languished since its IPO in late 2011, has also suffered from a spate of executive turnovers, which has seemed never-ending and has added to Wall Street’s concern. Most recently, CTO Debra Chrapaty resigned to take a CEO job elsewhere; and, this week, the head of Zynga’s New York office and former CEO of OMGPOP, Dan Porter, left after that $180 million acquisition failed to garner the pop it promised.

Due to the many departures, Pincus rejiggered his exec lineup in November, giving the latest team members larger roles and focusing the San Francisco-based group on major areas of opportunity, such as real-money gaming and mobile.

Here’s the whole filing:

Form 8-K

Image copyright LHF Graphics

Okay, so what? Companies are built on people. That’s nothing groundbreaking. But in the startup world of Silicon Valley, where we’re experiencing the highest annual employment growth in more than a decade, we spend more time talking and writing about the product and than thinking about how we can attract and retain talent.

To be fair, it’s hard to avoid hearing about the perks at gigantic companies like Google, Apple, Facebook and Twitter. But most startups can’t offer high salaries, luxury buses, catered meals and on-site laundry services to entice and maintain the most talented workers.

Startups can, however, entice them with vision, responsibility and recognition. And once you have the right people in place, all it takes is a little bit of structure to build and maintain the developer dream team.

Who needs free lunch when you have inspiration?
Before founding a startup, I worked as a medical researcher, and if I learned one thing while in medicine, it’s that scientists don’t work in a lab to sequence DNA. They work in the lab to cure cancer.

Doctors give up lunches, time with their families, sleep and whatever else they could be doing during the day and night for even the slightest breakthrough. They give their time and energy because they’re inspired by the purpose.

We might not be so directly curing cancer in the IT industry, but we can affect the technology that helps a doctor make a breakthrough. Because after all, it’s technology experts who built the nanotechnology that enables earlier cancer detection and the identity management solution that protects a cancer research company’s patients.

Too often in the IT industry we focus on technology and tools instead of their higher purpose and relationship to the rest of the world. Giving away free meals might seem nice, but the real key to attracting and retaining talent is that you must give them a higher purpose than the hammer that they’re swinging.

Recognition shouldn’t always be monetary
In addition to providing a purpose, you have to give your employees recognition. There are all types of potential recognition: raises, promotions, shout-outs in company meetings and yearly awards, to name a few. Although employers often motivate their employees with lofty titles, my advice is to put the emphasis elsewhere.

The truth is, there’s always someone who can offer your engineers a higher salary or a fancier title. But no matter how high the salary or lofty the title, positive reinforcement and strong connections are often the things that build loyalty and create a strong community, and that’s ultimately more meaningful.

So if personal recognition through great work is as important as a salary, there’s no need for titles. I would abandon them completely if I could, because in my experience, the best policy is to let compensation and ownership reflect importance and contribution.

And once you place importance on ownership, you should encourage your engineers and technical experts to speak at conferences, teach classes, blog, write whitepapers — do anything more than just write patents. Let them be recognized (and perhaps even become tech celebrities) and known in their respective fields and they’ll become advocates for your company more than if they were to brag about their high salaries or fancy titles.

You need a captain for more than the coin toss
As a founder, CEO, CTO or VP of engineering, it’s your job to provide your employees with the vision and recognition necessary to inspire them in their day-to-day work.

Whether or not you established the company in question, if you’re in charge of a developer team, they’ll follow your lead. If you stay in your office all day, only responding to a select few emails, engaging with a couple of your coworkers or joining the executive meetings when the biggest decisions are at stake, you won’t inspire.

Teams need a captain for more than just the coin toss. They need their best player, too. So if you’re technical, work with your engineers to validate and shape their work and dig in if something’s broken. Work hard and share your vision and they’ll imitate you.

Now all you need is a fire team, and a sergeant
Beyond the lofty job of instilling a vision and culture, you need to establish an organizational team structure to ensure your developers are working to the best of their ability.

Teams are essential to everything we do. And whether they’re teams of cells in your body, your March Madness bracket pick or your company’s team of developers, they function well because they’re designed to do so.

I believe team structures have a basic biological aspect to them. When I was younger, I spent some time on military bases and picked up a thing or two. Army fire teams and squads have an almost tribal structure — that’s the reason they work so well. A military fire team is made up of four people: a sergeant and three team members. A squad is a team of two or three fire teams plus a staff sergeant.

As a leader, you need to be capable of running a fire team and a squad. But you should never attempt to run more than a squad. You need to bring on sergeants and staff sergeants, or in our case VPs and managers, to stay organized. It’s true in the military and it’s true in technology and larger business.

When looking for these sergeants and co-captains — or whatever metaphor you choose to use for your co-manager — consider how they’ll be able to inspire, recognize, instill culture and organize.

I, like most founders I know, know that building and scaling core engineering, product and operations teams is nothing like building your post-work intramural kickball team. There’s so much more at stake: Your funders’ investments, your reputation and most full nights of sleep, to name just a few. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t apply the same team mentality in your workplace. If you continuously give your employees a purpose, encourage and recognize them (and organize your management to do the same), then there’s no need to tempt them with an office keg or ping-pong table — those are really just perks, after all.

Jason Hoffman (@jasonh) is the CTO and founder of Joyent. An expert on scalable systems, Hoffman earned his PhD in Molecular Pathology at The Burnham Institute and UCSD School of Medicine, and MS and BS in Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA.

Image copyright YanLev

I often find myself surrounded by strong, intelligent businesswomen who are more than comfortable with tough negotiations. But the truth is that many women are new to the business world, and negotiating equity is often a mystery for even the most experienced of us. It boils down to the fact that many startup founders think they have more equity than they really do.

As more and more women begin to populate CEO and founder-level positions, and we get closer to income equality between genders, I feel it’s increasingly important that we not only understand our merited assets, but more importantly, we learn how to ink them into our contracts upfront.

With this in mind, here are five guidelines that I feel will help ensure the highest possible stake in your company.

1. Fight for the Title You Deserve

   You may have heard that it’s not a good idea to be hung up on a title during negotiations, but in my experience, titles are important. This is especially true in regards to how you are treated as an employee both internally and externally, and they’re important for your next career move as well.

   Your title costs the company nothing. If your role is going to include getting the company on the map, shoot for C-Level or Founding Partner. It doesn’t matter if it’s not your idea. If you have been hired to a) create demand for a new product, b) define a new product or c) turn an idea into a revenue-generating company (or all of the above), then you are absolutely a founding partner.

   If you don’t go for that top title, you are leaving room for someone else to swoop in and nab it. I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to entrepreneurs I know (men and women).

   You can point out that with a woman on board at a founding level, the company may in fact be in a better position for success. A study released last April shows that companies that have more diverse teams (gender-wise as well as cultural) in their C-Level and executive roles perform notably better financially and on equity returns.

   Once you’ve defined your value in the company and your business card reflects that, confidence to negotiate a higher financial stake in the company will come much more easily.

2. Up the Salary Ante With Raises and Bonuses Tied to Performance

   Many times when negotiating at a startup, particularly prior to Series A, you will be told they can’t pay you at market rate, but that you’ll be given equity to make up for it. That may be true at the time you start, but it shouldn’t remain true throughout your employment.

   Begin negotiating pre-A to get you where you want to be post-A. If you are willing to put skin in the game and take a risk in joining a startup, you should also benefit along the way by virtue of your performance. So one way to get to your market rate is to take a lower base salary, but request additional equity grants upon completion of specific (and clearly defined) objectives throughout your employment. This is a great way to pull in more equity at a later date and also keep you motivated to hit pre-defined milestones. There’s less risk for both of you in this case.

3. Ask for Earlier Vesting Shares and Options

   Vesting arrangements and rights can also be a little tricky to navigate within a startup.

   The industry standard vesting period is four years, with a one-year cliff. The cliff means you are waiting a full year for a percentage of equity to vest (typically 25 percent), and if you leave before one year is up you get zip. Generally after the cliff, you vest on a monthly or quarterly basis for the remaining three years.

   Four-year vesting is not an absolute. Ask for some of your shares to vest earlier, so that you have ownership earlier. I recommend asking for two years post the initial year, meaning after three years your stock is fully vested, rather than four. That ownership is empowering and motivating.

   You should also strive for the ability to “early exercise,” which essentially means you exercise your options prior to vesting. Negotiate a certain percentage of equity to vest early, or start vesting on day one in order to avoid that one-year cliff.

   In my experience, the tax treatment for this is the same as restricted stock, and you’ll only pay on your gains rather than income tax.

4. Don’t Forget About Anti-Dilution Protection

   If you are coming in as a C-level hire, you will be key to any capital raise. Your reputation and experience will be a vital component that VCs will evaluate during their decision to invest. So ask for an anti-dilution clause for, at the very least, the Series A. If you don’t, you’ll be in for an unpleasant surprise post-A. It’s possible to find yourself with only two-thirds (or less) of what you originally thought was your percentage share in the company once you have closed that first round of funding.

   Companies often throw out a share number that sounds appealing, but you really have no way of knowing its true value without some context. Ask for the percentage their number represents out of the total shares outstanding. If they won’t tell you, then it’s not a lot!

   Once your stake in the company is clearly defined, the anti-dilution clause will protect you from getting washed out in every capital raise. It’s not an easy sell, but you can push for it through the first round of funding. You will not get this indefinitely, however.

   If you are joining post-A, ensure your options are on a “fully diluted” cap table, so you know what you are really being offered.

5. Have a Plan for Your Exit Strategy

   As with most phases of the startup life cycle, “the exit,” whether it is yours personally or the exit event of the company, almost never goes as planned. Of course you want (and hope) that everything will be great at your new startup, but the reality is that the startup ecosystem is a landmine for unforeseen events and obstacles. It’s important to protect yourself upfront from events you can’t always predict, like mergers, joint ventures, new management, changes in company direction, the product not working, crazy CEOs and so on.

   You are taking a risk with your career to join a startup, so try and avoid “at will” employment. Establish a minimum term of 6-12 months guaranteed employment or 3-6 months severance.

   If you depart “due to good reason” (for example, an unfavorable change to your job title, compensation or role) before that term is over, you will still get paid your base salary. Also, try to get some percentage of unvested options to vest upon your departure.

   Protect yourself in case you are terminated “without cause,” and negotiate into your contract full or partial acceleration on options as a condition of an early/unforeseen exit.

Keep in mind that it’s likely you won’t get everything you ask for. But if you aim high, you should find yourself in a much better place in terms of equity, incentives and material wealth.

Kathy Leake is co-founder and president of the highly successful intent targeting network, LocalResponse. Kathy comes from a long background in startup entrepreneurship, particularly in the ad tech space (prior to LocalResponse she co-founded Media6Degrees), and as the only woman at the board table for 25+ years, she’s learned a thing or two about tough negotiations and standing up for the title, salary, equity and respect that she deserves.

According to a regulatory filing by Yahoo, its CEO Marissa Mayer got a $1.12 million bonus, as part of a compensation package she got when she came to the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

It was based on serving a half of a year. But, as has been previously reported, Mayer has an annual salary of $1 million, and is eligible for a $2 million annual bonus, based on meeting certain performance goals set by its board.

In addition, she has gotten numerous stock and options compensation, worth $56 million, including $14 million to make up for the loss of earnings when she left Google, where she was a top exec for many years. There are also other possible bonuses, depending on results.

The million-dollar payment is probably considered pretty much a bargain by investors, since the shares of Yahoo have risen close to 50 percent since she arrived. That’s been based largely on hopes that Mayer can turn the company around, and on the actual stellar performance of its Alibaba Group stake in China.

CFO Ken Goldman, who joined in October, was not eligible for a bonus in 2012, but was awarded a discretionary one of $100,000 nonetheless. He is also eligible for a 90 percent bonus in 2013, based on a $600,000 annual salary.

Here’s Yahoo’s 8-K filing, which also includes details of Mayer’s severance agreement:

SEC-YHOO-1193125-13-94121 –

Yahoo said today in a regulatory filing that it had hired one of Google’s top sales execs, Henrique De Castro, as its COO.

Earlier today, I had reported that CEO Marissa Mayer had been close to nabbing the advertising exec, who has most recently been Google’s president of partners business solutions.

De Castro is getting a pile of money for taking the job, including a $600,000 yearly base salary and an annual bonus that could double that figure. In addition, the Silicon Valley Internet giant will give him $36 million in stock grants, including a one-time retention equity award of $18 million and $18 million in the form of performance-based stock options.

He is also getting $1 million in “make-whole” cash for forgoing compensation from Google and $20 million in stock to replace his shares at the search giant that will vest over four years.

That is a very big check, although Mayer garnered an even bigger one when she joined the company in July.

Yahoo’s regulatory statement on the De Castro hiring is embedded below in its entirety, so you can read about his new riches for yourself (unless Yahoo’s persnickety legal head tries to block it).

Said a Google spokesperson about the departure: “We’re grateful to Henrique for all of his contributions at Google and wish him all the best in his new role at Yahoo!”

Both Mayer and also former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson have made previous overtures to nab De Castro, who has held a number of high-level jobs for Google across the globe, including at DoubleClick, in display ads and with major partners.

While he had previously rebuffed those efforts, this time De Castro bit.

There were signs he might this past week, after De Castro canceled a major offsite for his employees, and several attendees who know him well said he was not present at the company’s first night of its annual Zeitgeist event for advertising and publishing clients. The suave De Castro is usually a more noticeable fixture at such gatherings.

This is Mayer’s first big hire at Yahoo, having added only lower-level or less well-known execs to her stable of talent since she was appointed.

She touted the hire in a tweet, although the news was long out the door, while also noting on Twitter it was her first full day at the office since having her first baby two weeks ago.

My first full day back in the office, and I’m excited to kick it off by announcing my new COO, Henrique de Castro: businesswire.com/news/home/2012…

— marissamayer (@marissamayer) October 15, 2012

The hiring does create a potential issue in the sales arena, especially with current head of revenue Michael Barrett. De Castro and Barrett worked together at Google and multiple sources said the pair did not get along there.

It might not matter. While Barrett has publicly said he planned to stay at Yahoo under Mayer — he was hired by interim CEO Ross Levinson this summer before she arrived — many sources said he does not want to be at the company for the long term.

De Castro has a lot of work to do for the big payout he is getting and it will be a big challenge for him to turn around the troubled organization.

Along with declining growth, search market share, engagement and more, Yahoo also has had a management turnover issue of epic proportions.

De Castro will presumably be in charge of making it all better at Yahoo when he arrives sometime before the beginning of the year and is likely to focus on operations while Mayer zeroes in on products.

One area of trouble: While she has lavished attention on cultural issues and on the company’s tech troops, sources said most of the advertising and media leadership at Yahoo have had little interaction with Mayer since she arrived this summer.

Advertising, of course, is Yahoo’s biggest money maker.

The Portugal-born De Castro has a lot of experience here and is decidedly more of a charmer than Mayer.

More importantly, he is a very high-profile hire, as well as a colorful one. He speaks a menu of languages, dresses with a lot of style and is a worldwide traveler. I know him a little bit and find him to be smooth and confident, even if a little cagey.

Before Google, De Castro worked at Dell and also McKinsey.

All this makes him a perfect choice for Mayer, who is also a former Googler, since she has been considering purchasing a range of companies in the advertising tech space. The most likely candidate of late is PubMatic, which has been in early talks with Yahoo about being acquired.

The Silicon Valley start-up would be a solid add to Yahoo’s ad platform offerings, especially if it wants to stay competitive with Google. PubMatic helps publishers effectively manage their display ad inventory, and competes with Google’s AdMeld.

(Ironically, Barrett ran that start-up, which he sold to Google for $400 million about a year ago.)

Here is the De Castro hiring document from Yahoo:

YHOO-20121015-8K-20121015

And here is the official press release from Yahoo:

Henrique de Castro Named Chief Operating Officer of Yahoo!

October 15, 2012

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) announced today that Henrique de Castro has been hired as chief operating officer (COO). Reporting directly to Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, de Castro will be responsible for strategic and operational management of Yahoo!’s sales, operations, media and business development worldwide.

“Henrique is an incredibly accomplished and rigorous business leader, and I’m personally excited to have him join Yahoo!’s strong leadership team,” said Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!. “His operational experience in Internet advertising and his proven success in structuring and scaling global organizations make him the perfect fit for Yahoo! as we propel the business to its next phase of growth.”

“The combination of Yahoo!’s unique properties with high quality content, its renewed focus on outstanding user experience and its massive reach bring tremendous value to users, advertisers and partners,” said de Castro. “This is a pivotal point in Yahoo!’s history, and I believe strongly in the opportunity ahead. I can’t wait to join Marissa and the team and get started.”

De Castro brings more than 20 years experience leading operations, strategy, partner management and revenue generation for some of the world’s leading brands. Most recently, he was vice president of Google’s worldwide Partner Business Solutions group, where he was responsible for advertising platforms and services for Google’s publisher and commerce partners. Prior to that, he led Google’s media, mobile and platforms organization, where he helped to grow the business significantly. Prior to Google, de Castro spent two years at Dell Corporation, where he managed sales and business development operations across Western Europe. He has consulted for McKinsey & Company, where he advised numerous clients across many different industries. His career also includes senior positions in private equity and advertising businesses.

De Castro will join the company on or before January 22, 2013, or as soon as he has satisfied his obligations to his current employer.

Asa Mathat / AllThingsD.com

The filing shows that while Ellison took a token $1 salary, his combined compensation from stock options and other items for the year jumped by 24 percent year on year to north of $96 million from $77.6 million in 2011. Ellison’s compensation package included about $90 million worth of stock options, an $8.4 million $3.9 million incentive payment that was only half one-quarter as large as the maximum allowed under the bonus plan, and a $1.5 million payment for security at his home. Most of the increase can be attributed to the value of the options for 7 million shares that Ellison received. He received the same amount of options last year, and they’re simply worth more this year.

Ellison, the company’s founder, who has run it since 1977, already owns more than 23 percent of the outstanding equity in Oracle, amounting to more than 1.1 billion shares. As of Friday’s closing price, his stake in the company is worth more than $37 billion.

Catz, Oracle’s president and CFO, received a 23 percent raise in total compensation. Oracle reported her combined compensation in salary, stock options and other payments as $51.7 million, up from $42.1 million the year before, including options awards worth more than $48.3 million, and an annual base salary of $950,000. She owns a stake in the company amounting to more than 23.5 million shares, which, as of Friday’s closing price, is worth more than $763 million.

Hurd, who joined the company in 2010 after leaving Hewlett-Packard, where he was CEO, saw his total compensation for the year drop to $51.7 million from $78.4 million the year before. The decrease is because of a big one-time bonus in stock-option grants that Oracle gave him when he joined. His base salary is equal to Catz’s, at $950,000, and also included $48.3 million worth of stock options. Hurd owns 5.4 million shares in the company, which, as of Friday, was worth north of $176 million.

Hurd and Catz also each received a $2.4 million incentive payment out of a possible $10.4 million.

The compensation was for Oracle’s fiscal year 2012, which ended May 31, a period during which the company’s share price fell by 19.5 percent, annual revenue rose by 4.2 percent, and net profits rose by 16.8 percent.

The question of where to live can be tough to answer, whether you’re looking for better bike lanes, quality schools, fine dining or just any place where you can land a job.

Fortunately, there are Web sites that offer more contextual information about neighborhoods than you might find in a real estate listing or a Craigslist ad. Over the past week, I’ve been researching metropolitan areas using WalkScore, Upwardly Mobile and NabeWise. All three sites are free to use, and are meant to help you determine where you should live, based on different — and sometimes overlapping — criteria.

WalkScore, which has its own site but also provides data for thousands of real estate sites, focuses on “walkability,” or proximity to amenities. This five-year-old service has amassed a ton of information on locations in the U.S. and abroad, but some of the information is outdated. Upwardly Mobile aggregates government data to offer suggestions on where to live, based on average salaries and cost of living. NabeWise tries to provide a little more color, blending neighborhood ratings with Yelp-like personal reviews, but it currently only covers some 25 markets in the U.S.

None of these sites factor in crime data. So a neighborhood could potentially be a little dicey, but still get a decent Walk Score or a thumbs-up from a local reviewer who considers an area to be up-and-coming.

I started by testing the WalkScore site. First, I entered my own ZIP code to determine my neighborhood’s Walk Score: 95 out of 100. It was deemed a “Walker’s Paradise” by the site, and a “Transit Paradise” in the transit section of the page, which listed all subway and bus lines next to a giant Google map.

WalkScore also shows apartment rental listings, indicating an average rental price. WalkScore gathers this data from such Web sites as Craigslist, ForRent.com and MyNewPlace.com. Most of the rental listings I looked at eventually lead me to Craigslist.

I liked the ability to narrow my WalkScore search, which literally shrinks the rental map, by indicating how long I wanted my commute to be. For example, when I researched San Francisco — the second most walkable large city in the U.S. — it found a cluster of apartments that were a 15-minute bike ride away from our AllThingsD office.

WalkScore also just launched a free iOS app, which has a nice, intuitive design and is a little less cluttered than the Web site.

But WalkScore wasn’t perfect. I’d heard from other users that some of the site’s information is outdated or inaccurate, and I found that to be true. WalkScore listed a now-closed Barnes & Noble bookstore as an amenity near me. It also listed Conde Nast’s corporate offices as a bookstore, and the Six Flags corporate offices as “local entertainment.” WalkScore says it has just 10 employees working on the site, so the site can be slow to update.

Upwardly Mobile, created by the nonprofit Sunlight Foundation, is meant to provide recent college grads and job-seekers with an economic snapshot of metropolitan areas, to get a better understanding of job markets and the cost of living in those areas. The “mobile” in this Web site’s name isn’t meant literally: It doesn’t offer any data on a city’s walkability. The app launched this past spring, but some of the data within the app, specifically the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is from 2010.

Upwardly Mobile starts out with a quick survey asking for your ZIP code, your occupation, and what’s important to you: Salary, cost of childcare, gas prices, food prices, housing prices or all of the above. Then it drums up a list of cities that compare to your current area of residence.

After taking the survey, Bethesda, Los Angeles and Seattle came up in my Top 5. From there, I could further expand the results, to see the average salary of writers in that area, the average cost of food, child care, medical services and recreational activities. It was interesting to parse through the economic data, though I didn’t really get a feel for the soul of a city by using this site.

Upwardly Mobile doesn’t have any mobile apps, though it does have a mobile-friendly HTML5 Web site.

NabeWise (“nabe” is short for neighborhood) launched in early 2010. It’s a pretty comprehensive, Yelp-like Web site for neighborhoods, featuring reviews, ratings and even Foursquare check-ins to local venues. NabeWise’s search results come from a mix of data from research firm Onboard Informatics, as well as user-generated content.

When I searched for neighborhoods based on dining in San Francisco, NabeWise showed me a color-coded map of the city, with North Beach ranking No. 1. From there, I could navigate to an entire page on the North Beach neighborhood, which NabeWise told me was great for dining, singles and public transit, but not ideal for families, senior citizens and people looking for parking.

Parents will appreciate the in-depth school charts NabeWise offers. And I really liked the personal reviews contributed by NabeWise users. One woman described Hayes Valley as an area that used to be “the bowels of cracktown” from which “a flower has grown and blossomed over the entire nabe.” In the reviews for the Upper West Side of Manhattan, residents debated whether the yuppie crowd has killed the spirit of the old neighborhood.

One thing that surprised me about NabeWise is that it doesn’t offer healthy living, like walkability or access to bike trails, as criteria. NabeWise says those looking for healthy living should evaluate how many parks are in an area.

Also, NabeWise currently doesn’t have mobile apps, though the company says they’re in the works.

If income data and cost of living are your primary concerns, you’ll likely want to check Upwardly Mobile. For a good idea of where the hipsters live, where the families dwell and where the schools are, NabeWise offers a good mix of rankings and real-people reviews. If being able to walk everywhere is your thing, WalkScore’s the site to see, but verify the listings before heading out the door.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120827/dear-internet-where-should-i-live/feed/ 6 http://allthingsd.com/20120822/best-buys-new-ceo-gets-pay-package-worth-up-to-32-million/ http://allthingsd.com/20120822/best-buys-new-ceo-gets-pay-package-worth-up-to-32-million/#comments Wed, 22 Aug 2012 18:57:47 +0000 Ann Zimmerman and Joann S. Lublin http://allthingsd.com/?p=244065 Best Buy Co. awarded new Chief Executive Hubert Joly with a compensation package worth up to $32 million to lure him to the slumping electronics chain.

Much of the pay package — which is 2½ times more than the retailer earned in its most recent quarter — is intended to compensate Mr. Joly for money he was set to earn as CEO of hospitality chain Carlson Cos., a job he resigned last week to take the helm at Best Buy.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120822/best-buys-new-ceo-gets-pay-package-worth-up-to-32-million/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120719/mayer-to-get-40-million-in-overall-compensation-for-yahoos-top-job/ http://allthingsd.com/20120719/mayer-to-get-40-million-in-overall-compensation-for-yahoos-top-job/#comments Thu, 19 Jul 2012 21:25:47 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=232094

Yahoo revealed in a regulatory filing that it could be paying its new CEO Marissa Mayer a total of close to $60 million to turn the company around.

The mega-sum includes salary, equity grants, stock options, a make-whole payment for the Google shares she left behind and, perhaps most remarkably, a $30 million one-time retention award.

The amount, which is a whole lot more than what the last two Yahoo CEOs — Carol Bartz and Scott Thompson — were paid is, um, rather large.

One Yahoo board member had characterized the pay package to me as “big, big bucks,” as I reported earlier today.

I would say so!

(Side note: Mayer is already extraordinarily wealthy from her stint at Google, where she was its 20th employee.)

Here’s the breakdown of the largely performance-based compensation:

The salary amount is typical at $1 million, with an annual bonus of up to 200 percent of the base salary, which is $2 million. But, according to Yahoo’s employment letter, she could also get up to a 400 percent bonus, dependent on exceeding targets, which is $4 million.

Mayer also gets an equity award for 2012 of $12 million in stock ($6 million) and options ($6 million) that vests over three years. (She could get another similar grant annually, but I did not include that in the overall number, which is $12 million annually or more if she exceeds targets.)

The really big number is a huge up-front, one-time retention award, vesting over five years, of $15 million in stock and $15 million in options.

Finally, there is a make-whole payment of $14 million for the stock she left behind at Google.

Overall, that means about $5.4 million for the rest of this year and could add up to $20 million each year to come.

The pay package was hotly debated by the board as to whether the high-profile exec was worth the huge amount.

While Mayer is considered a talented techie, a very strong decision maker and adept at product innovation, some of the board’s directors raised concerns about her and paying so much to retain her.

One issue: She had been notably passed over by Google CEO Larry Page for one of the major unit jobs in his reorganization of the company, while others in her peer group had been promoted.

That said, since such company ups and downs happen all the time, others argued that Mayer was just the kind of disruptive agent of change that Yahoo needs, especially because she could inspire its engineers and also attract much needed talent.

The enormous compensation was pushed through, said several sources, by Dan Loeb, the one-time activist shareholder who now appears to be the puppet master of the Yahoo board. He owns about six percent of the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

(Another side note: Multiple sources tell me that Loeb has been making calls to all kinds of Internet figures this week, looking for high-fives for his landing of Mayer, a hiring that was largely engineered by him.)

Her appointment has surely garnered a lot of attention for Yahoo, with massive media coverage of the dynamic young exec. Some of the coverage has focused on her being a woman and also on the fact that she is currently pregnant.

But much of it is focused on how Yahoo — a deeply troubled company that has been trying to revive itself for many years now without success and with a lot of management mishegas — has been able to attract such a high-profile and impressive-resumed leader to goose both its products and its stock.

Let’s hope Mayer can do just that, because Yahoo is surely paying up big-time for the privilege.

Please take a gander here at the filing, directly from the Department of the Internet Rich Get Richer:

YHOO-20120719-8K-20120715

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120719/mayer-to-get-40-million-in-overall-compensation-for-yahoos-top-job/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120521/apples-cook-tops-the-list-of-highest-paid-ceos/ http://allthingsd.com/20120521/apples-cook-tops-the-list-of-highest-paid-ceos/#comments Mon, 21 May 2012 17:23:48 +0000 Scott Thurm http://allthingsd.com/?p=210639 Steve Jobs left big shoes. Apple Inc. is betting $378 million that Tim Cook is the right guy to fill them.

That is the value of the annual pay package Mr. Cook was awarded when he was named Apple chief executive last August, about two months before Mr. Jobs died. Nearly all of the compensation stems from a grant of one million shares of restricted stock, valued at $376.2 million, based on Apple’s stock price at the time.

Mr. Cook’s 2011 compensation is the highest recorded in The Wall Street Journal’s annual CEO pay survey since at least 2006, when the Securities and Exchange Commission changed its rules for reporting executive pay.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120521/apples-cook-tops-the-list-of-highest-paid-ceos/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120430/google-sales-boss-nikesh-arora-gets-an-8-million-payday/ http://allthingsd.com/20120430/google-sales-boss-nikesh-arora-gets-an-8-million-payday/#comments Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:46:43 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=201574 Nikesh Arora, who runs Google’s ad business, is set to cash an $8 million paycheck next month. The one-time payout, disclosed via an SEC filing today, is compensation for a chunk of stock and option grants he’s giving up as part of a new pay package. Last year Arora made $23 million, most of which came from stock and options.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120430/google-sales-boss-nikesh-arora-gets-an-8-million-payday/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120109/steve-jobss-paycheck-1-tim-cooks-paycheck-378-million/ http://allthingsd.com/20120109/steve-jobss-paycheck-1-tim-cooks-paycheck-378-million/#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:45:51 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=161985 Financially, 2011 was a windfall year for Tim Cook. His appointment as Apple CEO following the departure of co-founder Steve Jobs brought with it a new salary and a wheelbarrow full of stock awards.

According to Apple’s 2012 Proxy Statement, Cook received a jaw-dropping $377,996,537 in total compensation last year — which is $377,996,536 more than his late predecessor made.

Cook made a little more than $900,000 in salary in 2011, but a massive bonus in restricted stock units, vesting in two five-year increments and doled out with his appointment to the CEO slot, sent his total compensation into the stratosphere.

Of course this isn’t the first time Apple has showered a CEO in stock options. A similar scenario played out in 2006, when Steve Jobs received $646.6 million, much of it in stock.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120109/steve-jobss-paycheck-1-tim-cooks-paycheck-378-million/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111101/realnetworks-ceo-search-ends-with-appointment-of-thomas-nielsen/ http://allthingsd.com/20111101/realnetworks-ceo-search-ends-with-appointment-of-thomas-nielsen/#comments Tue, 01 Nov 2011 20:58:09 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=139124 RealNetworks has hired Thomas Nielsen as its new president and CEO. Nielsen, who will also join the board, most recently served as VP of the Digital Imaging Group at Adobe Systems. According to a filing with the SEC, Nielsen’s base salary will be $450,000. He will also be entitled to a signing bonus of $100,000, stock options and the chance to earn additional bonuses.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111101/realnetworks-ceo-search-ends-with-appointment-of-thomas-nielsen/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110929/hps-new-ceo-takes-1-annual-salary-and-lots-of-stock-options/ http://allthingsd.com/20110929/hps-new-ceo-takes-1-annual-salary-and-lots-of-stock-options/#comments Thu, 29 Sep 2011 22:18:02 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://allthingsd.com/?p=126689 Alongside the exit package for former CEO Léo Apotheker just announced, Hewlett-Packard also disclosed the compensation package for its new CEO, Meg Whitman. Here are the highlights:

• A base salary of $1 per year. In doing so she’s following the example of another well-known CEO who just stepped down from his job: Former Apple CEO and now Chairman Steve Jobs.
• An option to purchase 1.9 million shares of HP under its 2004 stock incentive plan. The exercise price would be equal to the market value of the share price on the grant date. The options will vest over eight years, but are considered fully vested only if HP’s share price rises by 40 percent or more. As of today that number of shares is worth $45.2 million.
• 100,000 of those shares will vest on each of the first three anniversaries of Whitman’s anniversary of service, provided she’s still on the job.
• An additional 800,000 of those 1.9 million shares will vest after one year, provided HP’s share price has risen by 120 percent and stayed that high for at least 20 days.
• Yet another 800,000 of those shares vest on the second anniversary of her date of service, provided the share price is up 140 percent or better for 20 consecutive days.
• Whitman will also get the same annual cash bonus of $2.4 million each year, with a maximum equal to 2.5 times the target of HP’s existing incentive plan, which is tied to cash flow performance.
• If she’s fired, she receives a severance benefit payment equal to 1.5 times the sum of her annual base salary — a whole $1.50 — plus the average of her bonuses paid during the preceding three years.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110929/hps-new-ceo-takes-1-annual-salary-and-lots-of-stock-options/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110921/what-will-leo-apotheker-walk-away-with-if-hes-fired/ http://allthingsd.com/20110921/what-will-leo-apotheker-walk-away-with-if-hes-fired/#comments Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:44:56 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://allthingsd.com/?p=123045 Now that it appears Léo Apotheker’s job as CEO of Hewlett-Packard is in jeopardy, the question quickly turns to what his severance package might be.

Potentially, he could walk away with a lot. His contract, on file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, grants him a series of cash payments, company shares and other things, some of which he’ll keep, some of which he won’t.

First off is the cash: Apotheker’s base salary was $1.2 million a year and according to my reading of his contract, he’ll be eligible for a severance plan that will pay him that salary for 18 months after termination.

He also received a $4 million cash signing bonus for joining HP. But depending on when and how he’s fired — with or without cause — he may have to give some of it back. The contract says that if he’s terminated within 18 months he has to return some of that signing bonus, specifically: “an amount equal to the Signing Bonus multiplied by a fraction with the numerator equaling 18 less the number of whole months that have elapsed from the Effective Date to the date of Executive’s termination of employment (the “Date of Termination”) and a denominator equal to eighteen (18).” I’m not going to do that math for you because I don’t get what the contract aims to say. Given that it’s been less than 12 months since he joined HP, let’s just assume he’ll be required to return most about 40 percent of it.

He’s also entitled to an incentive bonus that amounts to between 200 percent and 500 percent of his annual salary, based on HP’s existing incentive plan. The incentive plan isn’t spelled out in the contract, but since these plans are usually tied to stock performance I can’t imagine what payment he’d be entitled to under it. The contract stipulates that he gets at least some of it. More on that below.

Apotheker has also accumulated a fair amount of HP stock. He was granted 76,000 shares of HP stock, half of which vested on Oct. 31, 2010. The next day, HP shares closed at $42.49 a share, making the grant worth $1.6 million. Another grant of 38,000 shares is due to vest on Oct. 31 of this year. This block is worth a lot less: $889,000 as of the price of HP shares at the moment.

There were also one-time grants that were essentially a signing bonus package: 80,000 non-forfeitable shares, half of which are due to vest on Oct. 31, 2011, and the other half due to vest on Oct. 31, 2012. If terminated without cause within three years, these shares become fully vested. That’s another $1.9 million worth of HP shares. However, if terminated “with cause” then all the unvested equity goes poof and isn’t considered vested. This will make the “with cause” and “without cause” portion of the discussion with the board important.

Apotheker also got a lot of cash in relocation benefits, and was said to have purchased a six-bedroom house in Atherton, Calif., for $7 million. His relocation allowance amounted to $4.6 million, of which $2.9 million was to be devoted to the actual, uh, relocation, and $1.7 million of which was to compensate him for the forfeiture of payments and benefits he lost upon leaving his old job at SAP. This payment was fully vested right away and is not subject to repayment.

Update: Many thanks to reader Yogi who in the comments below appears to have done all the math much better than I could. His findings:

• $8.6 million: signing ($4 million) and relocation ($4.6 million) bonus.
• $3.6 million earned for one year of service (base $1.2 million + $2.4 million minimum bonus minimum according to contract).
• 156,000 shares of HP works out to about $3.8 million based on today’s price. Remember that all stock grants vest upon termination.
• $4.8 million severance payment: 2x the base salary plus minimum 2x bonus. This would be paid over 18 months and would stop if he gets a job with a competitor.
• 728,000 PRUs: This one is flexible, and is based on performance of the company, but automatically assuming cash flow has been achieved. Since PRUs are used as incentive for all HP management, Apotheker’s estimated achievement will be the same as for everyone else. Even at 50 percent, this would be worth about $9 million (364,000 shares), and at 75 percent it would be worth $13.5 million.

The range works out to be in the neighborhood of $28 million to $33 million.

See the clear-as-mud contract below.

apothekercontract

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110921/what-will-leo-apotheker-walk-away-with-if-hes-fired/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110916/what-was-behind-the-timing-of-yahoo-ceo-carol-bartzs-abrupt-ouster/ http://allthingsd.com/20110916/what-was-behind-the-timing-of-yahoo-ceo-carol-bartzs-abrupt-ouster/#comments Fri, 16 Sep 2011 21:31:52 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=121210

In the end — the bitter end, that is — there really is no good time to fire someone.

But the timing of the ouster of Carol Bartz as CEO of Yahoo is one of the more curious things about the corporate mishegas at the Silicon Valley Internet giant of late.

That included drastically moving up the clock on Bartz, which was not part of a plan until recently. In fact, several sources were told only last month by Yahoo board members that evaluation of her status — her contract ended at the beginning of 2013 — would not take place until the end of 2011.

That obviously changed.

And, because it is Yahoo — which never met a crisis situation it could not hopelessly complexify — there are numerous and conflicting accounts about the reasons it was done so quickly and abruptly.

They include the board’s feeling that Bartz had not responded to their requests for a credible strategic plan; worries that she would not ever meet annual performance goals, including improving its stock price; upcoming weak third-quarter numbers, which will continue a troublesome downward trend in Yahoo’s key advertising business; and, perhaps most intriguingly, the need to make a move before it was revealed that another activist investor, this time Third Point’s Daniel Loeb, had decided to target Bartz and the Yahoo board.

One thing is certain: The firing of Bartz was messier than it needed to be, mostly because several sources said she was caught unawares.

“She did not know it was happening, even if she probably should have seen it coming,” said one person familiar with the situation. “And she had no allies at the company to warn her, either.”

Indeed, at the time Bartz was fired over the phone by Chairman Roy Bostock — who had until late this summer been her fervent supporter — she was set to appear at a high-profile Citigroup investor conference in New York.

“It had to happen then, because you can’t put a CEO in front of investors and analysts and then fire her soon after,” said one person close to the situation.

Actually, former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel stepped down only days after appearing at the company’s annual meeting and telling the gathering he was in for the long haul.

The Loeb problem also played a part. According to several sources, while Loeb did not surface until after Bartz’s firing, several directors and Silicon Valley players were aware of his plans to target Yahoo.

While Loeb was not the more heavyweight threat that activist investor Carl Icahn had been in the past, sources said he was planning to call for Bartz’s firing, as well as a board re-do.

The large part of the reason for letting her go finally, of course, centered on not meeting performance goals set by the board.

While the overhaul of a hairball of systems and a rejiggering of staff was quickly done by the longtime and experienced manager, the turnaround and renewed product innovation promised by Bartz was slow in coming.

In addition, advertising sales results had worsened and recent quarterly reports showed little progress.

To remedy the situation, directors had asked Bartz to present a strategic plan earlier this year, which she did with the help of top execs. It further underscored the idea of Yahoo as a top-level digital media company.

But the board pressed for more details and felt Bartz was not the right exec to carry out the kind of dramatic renewal of Yahoo that is needed.

Looming, too, was the third-quarter earnings results on October 18, which sources said will show continued weakness at Yahoo.

For that, it’s likely the fired Bartz will get the blame, giving the board — which is also being criticized by large shareholders and others — a bit of breathing room as it figures out what to do next.

In other words, with no good news to report, the Yahoo board decided to deliver some bad news to Bartz.

(In related news, according to an 8-K filing by the company, interim Yahoo CEO and also CFO Tim Morse got a small bump in base salary from $600,000 to $750,000, effective September 15, 2011.)

And here is a video I did on WSJ.com’s Digits show yesterday about the buyer interest in Yahoo I previously wrote about, as well as its weak board:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110916/what-was-behind-the-timing-of-yahoo-ceo-carol-bartzs-abrupt-ouster/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110504/indie-game-developers-say-industry-is-more-fertile-than-ever/ http://allthingsd.com/20110504/indie-game-developers-say-industry-is-more-fertile-than-ever/#comments Wed, 04 May 2011 19:37:36 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://emoney.allthingsd.com/?p=5123 The role of the independent game developer is alive and well, with more opportunities than ever to get games in front of consumers.

A survey found that although independent developers make far less money than salaried employees, they felt the industry was more innovative than ever, calling 2010 “the year of the indie.”

Electronic Arts echoed those sentiments yesterday after it announced that it had acquired Firemint, a 60-employee game studio in Australia known for its blockbuster iPhone hit Flight Control.

EA Interactive’s EVP and GM Barry Cottle said the videogame industry will continue to see a flurry of smaller mobile and social acquisitions as larger studios see the value in picking up small, creative teams of developers. “We are always on the lookout.”

The survey’s results and EA’s perspective contradict what Nintendo said earlier this year during its keynote at GDC, the annual game developers conference. Nintendo’s President Satoru Iwata warned that there will be consequences to developing free or very low cost titles.

“The majority of people here are creating games for social and mobile. I fear our business is dividing, and that threatens the employment for those of us who make games for a living,” he said.

If Satoru was addressing the indie developers in the crowd, it’s true that they make less money. However, it’s also these developers who are the most optimistic–and represent potential acquisitions for more established game makers.

With the rise of open platforms, like social networks and mobile, developers can make original games on very small budgets that can reach millions of consumers through these channels. Likewise, new business models that allow consumers to play games for free have spurred adoption among those who were never willing to invest in an Xbox, Wii or PlayStation.

Game Developer magazine, which released results of its 10th annual salary survey, found that salaries of all types of developers increased over the year-ago period.

Developers working on console, emerging social and online titles saw a 7 percent salary increase in 2010 over 2009, reaching $80,817. Meanwhile, independent contractors earned an average of $55,493.

At the bottom of the ladder were self-identified “independents,” trailing with a $26,780 average. However, those indies also saw a nice salary boost, earning some $6,000 more compared to the year earlier.

Furthermore, the study said that while salaried game developers earned vastly greater average income, they had a bleaker outlook on the industry. Anecdotally, the survey’s respondents said that working in the traditional structure is “frustrating,” lamenting that larger studios are “trimming talent” and crunching harder.

Photo Credit: Roberta W.B.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110504/indie-game-developers-say-industry-is-more-fertile-than-ever/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110420/googles-schmidt-gets-a-1-25-million-raise/ http://allthingsd.com/20110420/googles-schmidt-gets-a-1-25-million-raise/#comments Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:20:24 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=60748 Looks like Eric Schmidt’s new role as executive chairman of Google comes with a proper salary.

Schmidt, who once earned just $1 a year as CEO is now drawing a base salary of $1.25 million with a potential $6 million annual bonus, according to a securities filing on Tuesday.

A nice raise for Schmidt, who stepped into his new role on April 4–not that he’ll even notice it. He currently owns some 9 million shares of Google, with a market value of about $4.8 billion.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110420/googles-schmidt-gets-a-1-25-million-raise/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110311/nokia-pays-elop-more-than-6-million-to-join/ http://allthingsd.com/20110311/nokia-pays-elop-more-than-6-million-to-join/#comments Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:17:42 +0000 Ian Edmondson http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=37541 Nokia Corp. will pay its new chief executive, Stephen Elop, a more than $6 million signing bonus for joining the world’s largest handset maker, according to documents filed Friday.

Mr. Elop, recruited from Microsoft Corp. to revive the ailing handset maker’s fortunes, received a payment of €2.3 million ($3.17 million) in October and is entitled to a payment of $3 million in October 2011, according to a Nokia filing at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

He also received €509,744 to reimburse fees paid to Microsoft and €312,203 in legal expenses.
Mr. Elop’s annual base salary is €1.05 million before bonuses, below the €1.23 million base salary of his predecessor, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

Rea the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110311/nokia-pays-elop-more-than-6-million-to-join/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110107/apple-opposes-proposal-on-ceo-succession-planning/ http://allthingsd.com/20110107/apple-opposes-proposal-on-ceo-succession-planning/#comments Fri, 07 Jan 2011 17:45:34 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=55360 A few noteworthy nuggets from Apple’s 2011 Proxy Statement, filed today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

In 2010 CEO Steve Jobs retained his $1 annual salary and some 5.5 million shares of Apple stock as well. “Since rejoining the company in 1997, Mr. Jobs has not sold any of his shares of the Company’s stock,” the filing reads. “Mr. Jobs holds no unvested equity awards. The Company recognizes that Mr. Jobs’s level of stock ownership significantly aligns his interests with shareholders’ interests.”

COO Tim Cook earned $59.1 million for the fiscal year, thanks to a $5 million bonus and $52.3 million in stock awards. Quite a spike from the $1.64 million he earned in 2009, but well-deserved given his performance, particularly when he filled in for Jobs during his medical leave of absence.

Included in the proxy statement is a shareholder proposal asking Apple to adopt a CEO-succession-planning policy and appended beneath it is a strongly worded statement from the company opposing it. “The Company recognizes that a highly talented and experienced management team, not just the CEO, is critical to Apple’s success,” it reads. “Accordingly, the Board already implements many of the proposed actions and maintains a comprehensive succession plan throughout the organization. While the Board strongly supports the concept of succession planning, it recommends a vote against [the proposal].”

Why?

Evidently, the board feels a written succession plan would give Apple’s rivals unfair advantage by publicizing its objectives and plans. It also fears that identifying potential successors to Jobs would invite other companies to recruit those people away from Apple. Finally, the board feels that its directors and Apple’s leadership can handle succession planning on their own. “The Company takes succession planning seriously, and the board has adopted a comprehensive process to ensure continuity and maintain the superior quality of its management team,” Apple said in the filing. “This process also allows flexibility to adjust to unanticipated changes in the market.”

Plus, Steve doesn’t like talking about it.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110107/apple-opposes-proposal-on-ceo-succession-planning/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20101123/hp-reverses-hurd-era-pay-cuts-unveils-benefits/ http://allthingsd.com/20101123/hp-reverses-hurd-era-pay-cuts-unveils-benefits/#comments Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:14:25 +0000 Benjamin Pimentel http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=33075 After a rocky start, new Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Officer Leo Apotheker is trying to settle into his role with a Thanksgiving gift for his employees.

During HP’s earnings call on Monday, Apotheker announced that the company was reversing pay cuts for a majority of the employees affected by a February 2009 salary-reduction plan under former CEO Mark Hurd.

HP also reinstated a company 401(k) plan matching contributions as a fixed benefit, and instituted a new share-ownership plan that would allow employees to buy company shares at a five percent discount.

“HP employees are a highly competitive group who want to win,” Apotheker said on a call with analysts. “They also want to be rewarded for their performance….I believe in the performance-driven culture, and our employees have been performing.”

The moves appear aimed at lifting the morale of a company that’s been reeling from yet another turbulent leadership transition, and helping Apotheker feel more welcome at the iconic Silicon Valley company once admired for its employee-friendly culture.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101123/hp-reverses-hurd-era-pay-cuts-unveils-benefits/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101012/yahoo-ceos-over-pay-puts-spotlight-on-performance/ http://allthingsd.com/20101012/yahoo-ceos-over-pay-puts-spotlight-on-performance/#comments Tue, 12 Oct 2010 12:12:59 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=35345

Yahoo’s CEO Carol Bartz has been under pressure of late, due to everything from executive turmoil to flat revenue to lack of vision to, perhaps most importantly, a flaccid stock price.

And, as of yesterday, you can add excessive pay to the pile.

That’s because Bartz just topped the list of 25 overpaid CEOs, which is done annually by proxy adviser Glass, Lewis & Co.

A dubious distinction, to say the least.

The San Francisco-based firm pointed to the $39 million Bartz garnered last year from Yahoo (YHOO), which–to be fair–includes both salary and options she has not yet sold.

Still, the huge sum also recently put her atop Fortune magazine’s list of highest-paid women.

Glass Lewis, of course, was using Yahoo’s top exec to make a point:

“Bartz represents a problem we find at many other firms with poor pay-for-performance grades: excessive compensation awarded to executives to encourage them to join or remain with a company.”

Indeed, this big number–however loaded with options based on some level of performance–is one that is sure to draw shareholder ire, due to the fact that the well-paid Bartz is simply not delivering what had been hoped for when she was brought on to shake up Yahoo.

It will be interesting to see if the board of Yahoo–hands down the weakest and most mistake-prone in Silicon Valley–will act in the same way the Microsoft (MSFT) board did with CEO Steve Ballmer.

Although a small thing, especially given how wealthy Ballmer is, the company pointed to the ill-fated venture that was the Kin phone and the slow response to the Apple (AAPL) iPad juggernaut, when giving him only half his maximum bonus recently.

This was despite record revenues at Microsoft, yet still a tiny but encouraging sign that the board has the courage to say: Not good enough.

Will Yahoo’s mousy board members manage to squeak out any such message to Bartz in the months ahead?

Having seen them in action for many years of stumbles now, which has been like watching someone throw himself continually down a flight of stairs, here’s my educated guess: No.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101012/yahoo-ceos-over-pay-puts-spotlight-on-performance/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20100629/goalkeeping-gets-easier-at-mint-com/ http://allthingsd.com/20100629/goalkeeping-gets-easier-at-mint-com/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:47:27 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://solution.allthingsd.com/?p=1265 When most people hear the word “budget,” they groan about all the numbers and spreadsheets involved in setting financial goals. Instead they procrastinate and continue spending without any specific savings goals. Case in point: I recently postponed a meeting with my financial planner because I didn’t have the energy after a long business trip to work through my finances.

Now Mint.com, a website that already offers user-friendly options for studying how one’s money is spent, has introduced an easy way to set budget objectives, link them to accounts and learn specific steps on how to reach those goals. The goals can even be personalized with digital photos, like an image of the car you’re saving up to buy. And this service, which launched Tuesday, doesn’t cost a cent.

I’ve been testing Intuit Inc.’s free, updated Mint.com service, specifically focusing on its new Mint Goals feature. The idea of adding goals that tie into real accounts has been a long time coming for the finance-management website. Mint previously offered a Planning section on its site, but it required too much manual input, including setting up personal budget categories, and guesswork about how much one should spend.

The Goals feature uses pop-up windows where users can quickly input data, like annual salary, to get estimates on how much they can afford to spend on things like a vacation, as well as how much they need to save for that vacation. Monthly savings estimates can be set to aggressive savings plans or conservative ones with just a mouse click.

Finances in One Place

Mint.com has been around for almost three years and is already used by millions of people. Its proprietary algorithms encrypt data so people will feel confident enough to input their usernames and passwords for their online financial accounts, allowing them to see all of their financial activity in one place. These accounts include those tied to credit cards, banks, retirement savings and others. Mint is known for displaying colorful visuals like pie charts and graphs, so it’s easy for people to see where they’re spending their money or how it’s being invested.

Mint.com’s new Goals tab (top right) offers users a choice of eight popular goals and one to customize. Colorful thermometers (top left) show how much progress was made toward a goal. Details of a particular goal (above) and a “Next Steps” checklist of tasks to complete.

Mint Goals is a new tab on the Mint.com site, and clicking on it directs users to a group of eight popular goals and one that can be customized (more will be added over time). The preset list includes goals to get out of debt, buy a home, buy a car, save for college, take a trip or save for retirement. A digital checklist in each goal called “Next Steps” gives people serious, doable tasks to complete, so they can actually make progress toward a goal in ways other than just putting money aside. This instant gratification saved me from doing a lot of calculating.

The Best Account

When you set up a goal for the first time, Mint suggests what type of account would work best for saving toward it. Examples include a 529 savings plan for people who are saving to put their kids through college or a Roth IRA for retirement savings. Mint will also tell you the provider with the best interest rate.

Unlike some other websites that encourage saving, like SmartyPig.com, Mint isn’t a bank, so you’ll have to leave the Mint site to create accounts and manage money transfers rather than starting them right on the site. Aaron Patzer, the company’s founder and CEO, expects the site will enable setting up savings accounts and money transfers by the end of this year.

Each goal includes the overall amount of money intended to be saved, today’s balance, planned and projected dates for reaching the goal and how much has been saved this month (like $200 of $750). I liked looking at Mint’s colorful thermometers, which quickly showed me how I was progressing in a particular goal.

For example, the Buy a Home goal checklist includes steps like finding a Realtor, getting homeowner’s insurance and getting prequalified for a loan. A panel beside each of these items also offers an educational explanation of what these steps really mean. Many explanations include links to a blog called MintLife, where blog posts from Mint employees and some freelancers offer deep explanations about financial questions.

Ads With Context

The Goals feature comes with contextual ads, which help it remain free. One checklist item suggests opening a high-yield savings account and also offers links to the Discover and American Express websites, which offer the accounts. If you’ve started a Mint Goal to save for a trip to Iceland, travel insurance is suggested, along with Web links to sites that sell trip insurance.

While these links might allow people to get started right away on a particular task, they also beg the question of whether these are the best options for users—or just the biggest advertisers on Mint. Mr. Patzer explained that companies for these ads are chosen according to what’s best for the user and are selected from a list of savings options ranked by the site’s editors.

Goals can be linked to several of your accounts on Mint so they’re updated with real-time data. A long-term retirement goal can link to a 401(k), brokerage account and retirement account. If the stock market takes a dive and money is lost in an account, that loss is automatically reflected in the overall goal’s balance. If you tie a savings account to a goal to save for a house, every dollar added to that account (on the bank’s end) is automatically reflected in the goal.

Mint already gave people a visually engaging way to know more about what their money is doing, but Mint Goals give people a real reason to come back to the site more often.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100629/goalkeeping-gets-easier-at-mint-com/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100618/sony-ceo-received-4-5-million-compensation/ http://allthingsd.com/20100618/sony-ceo-received-4-5-million-compensation/#comments Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:00:10 +0000 Juro Osawa http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=26181 Sony Corp. (SNE) Friday said Chief Executive Howard Stringer received total compensation of about ¥410 million ($4.5 million) and stock options for 500,000 shares in the last fiscal year ended March 31.

Under new corporate disclosure rules, publicly traded companies in Japan are required to disclose the annual compensation of executives receiving more than ¥100 million.

The new rules bring to light the closely guarded salary details of Japan’s top executives, and could expose the long-suspected gap in compensation levels between non-Japanese executives and their Japanese counterparts.

Sony said Mr. Stringer’s compensation last fiscal year consisted of about ¥310 million in basic compensation and about ¥100 million in bonuses.

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