As is usually the case with these things, it’s not about the base salary, but the stock options. Salesforce’s board gave Benioff a grant to buy 375,000 Salesforce shares at a price of $156.37 a share, which was Salesforce’s closing price on the grant date of Nov. 27. The shares vest over four years.

The option is granted on the assumption that the share price will rise, which it has been doing. Salesforce shares are up more than 55 percent this year. In 2011, Benioff’s last options grant was for 350,000 shares at a price of $108.25. That grant has since increased in value by more than $17 million.

Of course, that’s in addition to the 10 million shares Benioff already owns beneficially as of Nov. 27, according to the filing, worth nearly $1.6 billion.

The filing also says that Benioff is planning to sell off 412,500 shares in a three-day spree beginning on Dec. 26. No one knows what Salesforce’s share price will be that day, but at today’s price those sales would bring in more than $65 million.

The filing also discloses raises for several other Salesforce execs. CFO Graham Smith saw his base pay increase to $600,000 per year from $480,000, and executive VP of technology Parker Harris’s base pay is going to $625,000 from $450,000. They also received share grants: Harris got options to buy 60,200 shares plus 5,300 shares of restricted stock. Smith got options to buy 52,700 shares and 4,600 shares of restricted stock.

But SecondMarket isn’t dead yet. It’s not necessarily zooming up the growth charts, but it’s not dead. The company has done $418 million in business in the first three quarters of this year, down 3 percent from last year. However, the demographics of its customers are pretty dramatically different.

SecondMarket’s largest category of clients is now consumer electronics; it was by far the biggest in the third quarter, with 75.8 percent.

Behind that are e-commerce and financial services; and behind that, the formerly giant category of consumer Web and social media, according to a quarterly report released today.

Instead of former employees, SecondMarket’s largest selling contingent is now current employees.

Until the third quarter, there were always more former employees than current employees selling on SecondMarket — and, in 2010 and 2011, that was as high as 90 percent of sellers. In the third quarter of 2012, 75 percent of sellers were current employees.

“Companies are working with SecondMarket to incentivize, motivate and reward their current employees without having to face the wrath of the public markets,” said SecondMarket spokeswoman Aishwarya Iyer.

Iyer called employee liquidity programs “morale boosters.”

The demographics of the typical SecondMarket company has changed, as well. In the third quarter, the median valuation on SecondMarket was $538 million. That’s much smaller than companies like Facebook and Groupon in their private-market heydays.

The median SecondMarket company in the third quarter had raised $145.7 million, and had 609 employees who have been there for 7.5 years. The median selling program was $7.9 million per company.

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.

But as Zynga grew into a multibillion-dollar company with hot games like “FarmVille” and “Mafia Wars,” Mr. Pincus appears to have developed giver’s remorse.

Early last year, as Mr. Pincus began preparing to take Zynga public, he and several other executives decided the company had doled out too many stock rights to certain people in its early days, say people familiar with the matter. The executives chose an unusual solution: They began demanding that certain employees surrender some shares or be fired.

Those shares matter as Zynga approaches an initial public offering, expected this year, that could value it at close to $20 billion and make holders of large blocks of stock wealthy.

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• 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.

HP and Oracle Reaffirm Commitment to Long-term Strategic Partnership
Companies resolve litigation regarding Mark Hurd’s employment

PALO ALTO and REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Sept. 20, 2010 – HP and Oracle Corp. today reaffirmed their long-term strategic partnership and the resolution of litigation regarding Mark V. Hurd’s employment at Oracle. While the terms of the settlement are confidential, Mr. Hurd will adhere to his obligations to protect HP’s confidential information while fulfilling his responsibilities at Oracle. The agreement also reaffirms HP and Oracle’s commitment to delivering the best products and solutions to their more than 140,000 shared customers.
“HP and Oracle have been important partners for more than 20 years and are committed to working together to provide exceptional products and service to our customers,” said Cathie Lesjak, chief financial officer and interim chief executive officer, HP. “We look forward to collaborating with Oracle in the future.”
“Oracle and HP will continue to build and expand a partnership that has already lasted for over 25 years,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.

Though it acquitted him on one count of conspiracy, a federal jury on Friday found Reyes guilty on nine counts of securities fraud and making false statements–the same ones overturned last August because of prosecutorial misconduct.

Reyes, as you may recall, was charged in 2007 with “routinely backdating stock options grants to give employees favorably priced options without recording necessary compensation expenses. From 2000 through 2004, prosecutors alleged, he used the virtually unchecked authority given to him to grant ‘in the money’ options to employees by falsifying in the options documentation the date on which the grants were made and thereby granting the options with below-market strike prices.” In doing so, prosecutors argued, Reyes defrauded Brocade shareholders and violated generally accepted accounting rules.

Interestingly, Reyes’s legal team in the former exec’s most recent trial, opted not to call any witnesses in his defense–evidently an unwise idea give the evidence against him, which included testimony about Reyes’s “It’s not illegal if you don’t get caught” attitude toward options backdating.

Reyes will be sentenced on June 24. His attorneys say they plan to ask the judge for a new trial.

Excluding charges related to stock options and other items, Palm (PALM) said net losses were $13.6 million, or 10 cents a share, for the recent period. Revenue slipped to $68 million from $366.9 million in the same period last year. Excluding revenue deferred from sales of the company’s new Pre handset, Palm said adjusted revenue would have been $360.7 million. Analysts had expected the company to turn in a loss of 24 cents a share on sales of $291 million.

Palm shipped a total of 823,000 smart phone units during the quarter, up 134 percent over the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009, but down 30 percent year over year. Smart phone sell-through for the quarter was 810,000 units, up 76 percent from the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009 and down 21 percent year over year.

Speaking to analysts Thursday afternoon, Palm execs claimed that “the vast majority of new sales” for the quarter were generated by the Pre. But they declined to separate Pre sales from those of other handsets.

Skeptics will no doubt look at this and conclude that Palm didn’t meet expectations for Pre shipments of about 520,000. That, or the company is still selling a hell of a lot of Centros.

“We’re making significant progress with Palm’s transformation, and our culture of innovation is stronger than ever,” said Jon Rubinstein, chairman and chief executive officer. “We’re launching more great Palm webOS products with more carriers, and turning our sights toward growth.”

A few more Jon Rubinstein remarks from the earnings call:

On additional form factors:

I’m a big believer in families of products, and we’ll continue to evolve the line in the future and have a family of products for webOS.

On Carrier Customization:

We don’t really talk about our carrier agreements.

On Pre sales:

Sell-in and sell-through…the vast majority of new sales…relate to the Pre.

On the Pixi cannibalizing Pre sales:

The Pixi is a more cost-effective offering, so yes we expect some people might come into the store looking to buy a Pre and end up with a Pixi. But others might come in looking for a Pixi and end up with a Pre. As I said, we’re big believers in families of products. We’re happy to have two webOS products on the market.

On carrier diversification:

Sprint did a phenomenal launch with the Pre. They invested heavily in advertising….We’re looking forward to launching the Pixi with them as well. We don’t talk about our roadmap, but we’ll have more carriers and more products in the future.

On Motorola’s new Motoblur service:

We don’t really know much about it. To build really great consumer products, you have to own the OS and services. And the fact that we have webOS as our asset is really important.

“The compensation committee recognizes that Mr. Ellison has a significant equity interest in Oracle, but believes he should still receive annual compensation because Mr. Ellison plays an active and vital role in our operations, strategy and growth,” Oracle said in the filing. “Nevertheless, during fiscal 2010, Mr. Ellison agreed to decrease his annual salary to $1.”

A wise gesture from Ellison, who took a bit of flak at Oracle’s annual meeting last October after he made $543.8 million by exercising 36 million stock options. But still, a gesture only. Ellison is the fourth wealthiest person in the world, according to Forbes. He is also Oracle’s largest shareholder, with 23.4 percent of stock outstanding, as of July 21. That stake is valued at more than $25 billion today.

So as long as Oracle (ORCL) continues to outperform the market, Larry will be just fine.

“The compensation committee recognizes that Mr. Ellison has a significant equity interest in Oracle, but believes he should still receive annual compensation because Mr. Ellison plays an active and vital role in our operations, strategy and growth,” Oracle said in the filing. “Nevertheless, during fiscal 2010, Mr. Ellison agreed to decrease his annual salary to $1.”

A wise gesture from Ellison, who took a bit of flak at Oracle’s annual meeting last October after he made $543.8 million by exercising 36 million stock options. But still, a gesture only. Ellison is the fourth wealthiest person in the world, according to Forbes. He is also Oracle’s largest shareholder, with 23.4 percent of stock outstanding, as of July 21. That stake is valued at more than $25 billion today.

So as long as Oracle (ORCL) continues to outperform the market, Larry will be just fine.