News Intel CEO's compensation still trails AMD CEO's by half — despite a significant boost in 2023

[Admin]

Earlier this week it was revealed that Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger had earned a big rise in 2023. However, the extra millions mean Gelsinger is still only receiving approximately half the total compensation AMD CEO Lisa Su receives. We are still awaiting Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's 2023 total compensation figures.

Intel CEO's compensation still trails AMD CEO's by half — despite a significant boost in 2023 : Read more

 

[ezst036]

Honestly, I couldn't care less.

Last time I did the math on CEO pay I came to realize that it works out to be like a penny per card. (This was about maybe a year or two ago, on Nvidia cards)

CEO pay just does not affect me. Nor does it actually affect anybody else. Except penny pinchers.

 

[LibertyWell]

These salaries are completely fraudulent to begin with... I can't fathom why Tomshardware is highlighting this as if the Intel golden circle member make less than the AMD one is some how a travesty of justice. Here's how this criminal activity works:

Most CEOs sit on each others boards and vote themselves higher pay at the expense of their workers and shareholders. Every year their pay packages balloon a little more, with each new high watermark in compensation raising the yachts of all executives (because in CEO land, pay is based on what the other CEOs get) while the boat-less employees get left behind decade after decade. The corporate controlled media then jumps in and trumpets how valuable the executives are based on their completely engineered salaries (because gosh darn it, if the CEOs weren't worth that much they wouldn't be getting paid that much) and people like Jim Cramer jump to their defense like a loaded spring when those stories are challenged for being the propaganda they are.

In 1950 CEOs made 20-1 the average worker. In 1980 it was 42-1. In 2000 it was 120-1. In 2014 it is 204-1.

This did not happen by happy accident.

 

[ezst036]

Every year their pay packages balloon a little more, with each new high watermark in compensation raising the yachts of all executives (because in CEO land, pay is based on what the other CEOs get) while the boat-less employees get left behind decade after decade.

I find math to be fascinating. You said Intel. Ok.

The article says that Gelsinger made $11.61 million, let's just use 12 million to have a nice easy number to work with, and divide it by four. Let's give 75% to the employees. Ready! 9 million, just for them.

The challenge is, how many employees are we talking about? Well, what kind of employee? Engineers are a good, solid perhaps more mid-level kind of employee and not say, a janitor. Intel claims to have 15,000 software engineers. Ok, great. What reason do I have to distrust this number?

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/software/software-partnerships.html

How many hardware engineers does Intel employ? A little harder to discern, but between 20,000 employees in Oregon and 12,000 employees in Arizona, perhaps we can say that 25,000 employees are hardware engineers? Yes, I'm making that up but it does give us something to work with. Why don't we just play it safe and say there's only 10,000 hardware engineers? That's probably a low-ball, but that's ok.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/corporate-responsibility/community-global-sites.html

Between 10,000 hardware engineers and 15,000 software engineers, we have 25,000 total engineers.

I love it! Maths is so much funs! What's 9 million divided by 25,000?

It's a number that I'm more mad at about taking this time to doing the maths, than mad I can get about CEO pay.

We have $360 dollars. That's three hundred and sixty dollars per person.

Now in my lifetime I have seen boats for sale for $360 dollars. Guess what condition the boat was in?

Yes, maths are very fun, but it really hurts people's ability to get revenge-oriented.

Let's even be nice and say that Intel employees zero - zero hardware engineers anywhere on the planet! Which we all know is false, but let's only rely on the number we can trust. 15,000 software engineers.

When we do the fun maths we arrive at $600 dollar per person. I wouldn't set foot in a boat valued at $600 dollars. Would you?

I'll close with this. I hear you - I hear the deep anger in what you typed, I just don't know what realistic basis it's founded on.

(The Nvidia math was even easier than this. Nvidia sold like 20 million cards three years ago, and Jensen Huang's pay was 20 million. It was the biggest penny I'd ever seen.)

EDIT: Now, why don't we just give all of Gelsinger's 12 million away? Won't get one stinking penny! Also, we have to be truthful. We all know Intel has hardware engineers on its payroll. But let's use an even smaller number that is obviously unrealistic, only 5000 hardware engineers. So in total, Intel employs 20,000 software/hardware engineers.

What's 12 million divided by 20,000 engineers? It's again, 600 dollars. These are people who normally make upwards of 80,000, 90,000, and probably 100,000 or over 100,000 dollars every year and that's not including total compensation such as health/dental/401k.

How is 600 dollars worth so much anger over a long period? People spend years, decades of their lives being hateful over this. Why? That's not even enough to spoil a good pot of coffee. If I made 80k and was told by my boss I was getting a big fat bonus this year of a whopping 600 dollars, do you know how much of an insult that would be?

Maths, it turns out, just isn't any fun at all. It's a coffee spoiler.

 

[PEnns]

There is always somebody wasting time and bandwidth defending any CEO's obscene salary and golden parachute.
But especially if said CEO happens to be the big cheese of their favorite company.

But one should ask, why does TH deem this a worthy technological subject??

 

[slightnitpick]

Honestly, I couldn't care less.

Last time I did the math on CEO pay I came to realize that it works out to be like a penny per card. (This was about maybe a year or two ago, on Nvidia cards)

CEO pay just does not affect me. Nor does it actually affect anybody else. Except penny pinchers.

It affects employees when some are laid off, fired-and-rehired as benefitless "consultants", or have lower salary increases due to finances. It affects shareholders by diluting the number of shares. This is significant for individual employees, less significant for the average employee, and barely significant for the shareholders (barring Musk-sized share dilution), but it's wrong to say it doesn't "actually affect anybody else".

I don't like the way this article is framed. It implies that Gelsinger's compensation needs to, or morally should, catch up with Su's.

I find math to be fascinating. You said Intel. Ok.

The article says that Gelsinger made $11.61 million, let's just use 12 million to have a nice easy number to work with, and divide it by four. Let's give 75% to the employees. Ready! 9 million, just for them.

The challenge is, how many employees are we talking about?

$11.61 million is the 2022 figure, that increased in 2023. Most of that was stock based compensation. I believe if those were options and not grants that it involved Gelsinger/Su paying money to their company to exercise the options, so this isn't a straight wash in terms of cash disgorged by Intel/AMD.

See my text above to your earlier comment on why this "math" is wrongly based in general. $9 million equals about 45 low 6-figure salaries + benefits + overhead.

You can't just take a normal curve with a positive kurtosis (or even worse assume equal distribution) and base your math on that, you have to see what kind of curve actually models the underlying causes and effects generating the data, and then work from that. When talking about compensation in this era we're dealing with power law curves. $12 million may average out to $600 / employee, but it actually means that some employees get $6,000 (significant even for an engineer), others $600, and others nothing at all in bonuses.

 

[TerryLaze]

earned a big rise

Skyrise?
Raise, he earned, or "earned" a raise.

Also this here is the meat and potatoes of this article, Lisa takes more shares and those could be worth nothing by the time she would be able to redeem them.
AMD stock has been a couple of bucks before.

For example, Gelsinger’s 2023 salary was ‘just’ $1.07 million, but he earned $12.43 million in stock awards. Meanwhile, Su’s 2023 salary was $1.2 million, but she got $27.69 in stock and options, among other bonuses and incentives.

 

[USAFRet]

"earned a big rise"

Skyrise?

Raise, he earned, or "earned" a raise.

England and America are two countries separated by the same language
- George Bernard Shaw (probably)

 

[Findecanor]

Why should I care about what the super-rich make in salary in comparison to one-another?
That's not newsworthy.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

What journalists should do: Call out the effective duopoly in the CPU (AMD & Intel) and GPU (AMD and nVidia) markets and how they use their position to collude to keep prices ever going skyward and, as a result, consumers paying ever increasing prices while CEOs and other executives make tens of millions of dollars for their efforts.

What journalists do: Articles like this.

 

[wwenze1]

Honestly, I couldn't care less.

Last time I did the math on CEO pay I came to realize that it works out to be like a penny per card. (This was about maybe a year or two ago, on Nvidia cards)

CEO pay just does not affect me. Nor does it actually affect anybody else. Except penny pinchers.

Yes, this is a very good way to look at costs.

In the same vein, the firmware of the card is probably written by someone who was paid 0.01 cent per card. Enjoy your card.

 

[NeoMorpheus]

I can't fathom why Tomshardware is highlighting this as if the Intel golden circle member make less than the AMD one is some how a travesty of justice.

But especially if said CEO happens to be the big cheese of their favorite company.

But one should ask, why does TH deem this a worthy technological subject??

Why should I care about what the super-rich make in salary in comparison to one-another?
That's not newsworthy.

The answer to your questions is actually in one of those quotes.

 

[svengollie]

Honestly, I couldn't care less.

Last time I did the math on CEO pay I came to realize that it works out to be like a penny per card. (This was about maybe a year or two ago, on Nvidia cards)

CEO pay just does not affect me. Nor does it actually affect anybody else. Except penny pinchers.

When you did the math was it a penny per card or "it was like a penny per card", different currency similar to a penny?

 

[svengollie]

Honestly, I couldn't care less.

Last time I did the math on CEO pay I came to realize that it works out to be like a penny per card. (This was about maybe a year or two ago, on Nvidia cards)

CEO pay just does not affect me. Nor does it actually affect anybody else. Except penny pinchers.

When you did the math was it a penny per card or "it was like a penny per card", different currency similar to a penny?

 

[svengollie]

But AMD didn't lose their segment leading cloud blade server HC (high current) customer with a debacle thst also lost them all the sole source PC laptop business. The media wants to applauded their foundry win (which is brittle business and non IP labor, just like a contract mfg) when they screwed up Microsoft Azure and Surface.
So they are heros for winning a $29.00 per device sub con labor job? They had the IP and vertical sell but screwed it up. They had many generations of VR11, VR12, VR13 and VR 14 until the Lake debacle. The person in charge of the Surface product told me at the time he had to make a common test board to start facilitating AMD, Qualcomm and others to make a platform that would allow defense against Intel screwing them over.....and now we have it in the market.....multi souce CPU for portables within Surface. So no, its not the same as AMD....and the pay for the CEO should be quite a bit lower for Intel.

 

[ezst036]

You can't just take a normal curve with a positive kurtosis (or even worse assume equal distribution) and base your math on that, you have to see what kind of curve actually models the underlying causes and effects generating the data, and then work from that. When talking about compensation in this era we're dealing with power law curves. $12 million may average out to $600 / employee, but it actually means that some employees get $6,000 (significant even for an engineer), others $600, and others nothing at all in bonuses.

I guess there's some truth to that about the curve. So if we invalidated compensation for Gelsinger and gave it to everybody else, first we would have to give one of the 12 million to the COO. Maybe 750,000 to the CFO, and so forth. (might switch them based on seniority) By the time we run through upper management we got about a million left.

And by the time we get past lower management to the engineers, they're only getting $224 dollars each and the janitors will each get a gift card for a free McFlurry at McDonalds. Except, the ice cream machine is broken. No way around that one.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I have a saying:

"When you have a monkey for a CEO, pay them in bananas!"
I would definitely classify Paul Gelsinger as a monkey based on his antics:

Having said that, I think that comparing the salaries of the uber-rich is in pretty poor taste. Most people on this site would probably struggle to afford an RX 7800 XT. I say that because this is the world that these overpaid corporate pricx have created.

The amount of money that corporate executives are paid is irrelevant to 99.9% of people. The inference that there's anything fair about it is also pretty offensive. Just who was this article meant for? I ask because it sure wasn't meant for us.

This is one of the most tone-deaf articles that I have ever read on a tech site.

 

[Avro Arrow]

It affects employees when some are laid off, fired-and-rehired as benefitless "consultants", or have lower salary increases due to finances. It affects shareholders by diluting the number of shares. This is significant for individual employees, less significant for the average employee, and barely significant for the shareholders (barring Musk-sized share dilution), but it's wrong to say it doesn't "actually affect anybody else".

I don't like the way this article is framed. It implies that Gelsinger's compensation needs to, or morally should, catch up with Su's.

$11.61 million is the 2022 figure, that increased in 2023. Most of that was stock based compensation. I believe if those were options and not grants that it involved Gelsinger/Su paying money to their company to exercise the options, so this isn't a straight wash in terms of cash disgorged by Intel/AMD.

See my text above to your earlier comment on why this "math" is wrongly based in general. $9 million equals about 45 low 6-figure salaries + benefits + overhead.

You can't just take a normal curve with a positive kurtosis (or even worse assume equal distribution) and base your math on that, you have to see what kind of curve actually models the underlying causes and effects generating the data, and then work from that. When talking about compensation in this era we're dealing with power law curves. $12 million may average out to $600 / employee, but it actually means that some employees get $6,000 (significant even for an engineer), others $600, and others nothing at all in bonuses.

This is the point as I see it...

Once you have more than $10,000,000 in assets you should be forced to retire by law. You don't need to ever work again so you no longer need your job while someone else does. The economy would be far stronger this way and so would the world.

It's like when I look at lotteries, I scratch my head. I see from time-to-time lottery jackpots of $35,000,000CAD (in Canada, lotteries are tax-free so that number's real). I looked at it and thought "Wouldn't it be better for the economy to have seven winners of $5,000,000 each?" because it's enough to retire comfortably on (by comfortable, I mean earning 6-figures of interest yearly).

Instead of one new home being purchased, there are seven. The same goes for new cars, investments, etc. The economy receives seven times the stimulus of a single winner. There's also the fact that if you only (I know, the word "only" seems out of place here..lol) win $5,000,000, you're far more likely to be responsible with it instead of going broke like so many who win colossal 8-figure lottery jackpots have done. Even though it would put you on easy street for the rest of your life, $5,000,000 wouldn't feel like an infinite amount of money like $35,000,000 would to some people.

I would also personally prefer seven chances at $5,000,000 than one chance at $35,000,000. Either way, the winner is set for life and an intelligent person would much prefer the 600% increase in their chances of living on easy street.

The greed isn't necessarily in the fact that they're paid that much money (although that is a huge part of it). The greed is in how they try to hold on to that position forever, even though all it really does is take time away from their lives that they can never get back. Time is the one thing that cannot be bought.

 

[slightnitpick]

I guess there's some truth to that about the curve. So if we invalidated compensation for Gelsinger and gave it to everybody else, first we would have to give one of the 12 million to the COO. Maybe 750,000 to the CFO, and so forth. (might switch them based on seniority) By the time we run through upper management we got about a million left.

And by the time we get past lower management to the engineers, they're only getting $224 dollars each and the janitors will each get a gift card for a free McFlurry at McDonalds. Except, the ice cream machine is broken. No way around that one.

Except the rest of the C-suite isn't getting compensated more than the CEO except in unusual cases. So that $12 million distribution actually becomes a $20+ million distribution all the way down (and the janitors aren't getting squat, as they probably work for a contracting company).

 

[slightnitpick]

Once you have more than $10,000,000 in assets you should be forced to retire by law. You don't need to ever work again so you no longer need your job while someone else does. The economy would be far stronger this way and so would the world.

I'd actually prefer it that those people keep working (at least in a volunteer capacity). I don't like hitting a particular net worth as a license to live off the fat of the land. I'd rather the excess income be taxed at a very high rate.

It's like when I look at lotteries, I scratch my head. I see from time-to-time lottery jackpots of $35,000,000CAD (in Canada, lotteries are tax-free so that number's real). I looked at it and thought "Wouldn't it be better for the economy to have seven winners of $5,000,000 each?" because it's enough to retire comfortably on (by comfortable, I mean earning 6-figures of interest yearly).

I've read that lottery companies have actually studied this and found that it's the large jackpots that draw more players. People say they want a greater chance at a smaller number, but their money actually flows to a smaller chance at a greater number.

There are things I could, and would, do with half a billion that I cannot do with $10 million. Specifically starting a couple of not-for-profit businesses in neglected, but important, areas. (I'd expect these businesses to lose money forever, so would need the higher amount to keep them going indefinitely.)

I would also personally prefer seven chances at $5,000,000 than one chance at $35,000,000.

As that lottery FAQ I read a while back said, you have this option with things like scratch off tickets and the more minor lottery games.

The greed isn't necessarily in the fact that they're paid that much money (although that is a huge part of it). The greed is in how they try to hold on to that position forever, even though all it really does is take time away from their lives that they can never get back.

I agree.

 

[bigdragon]

All this article does is remind me how ridiculous executive salaries are. Laws need to be reenacted to control the makeup of company boards such that employees and customers have a bigger say. Too many of today's boards have the same people shuffled around and members who have no skin in the game (as in investment in the company whose board they're on). We should be applauding Intel for not paying their CEO as much as their peers -- this is a good thing!

Personally, I've been told I'd make a terrible rich person because I wouldn't hoard all that value. I'd be pouring money into my own theme park and/or game studio. Yacht? Boats are ridiculous money drains. Expensive cars? It'll get destroyed by road debris and limited by traffic. Giant mansion? Too much to keep clean.

 

[deadsmiley]

There is always somebody wasting time and bandwidth defending any CEO's obscene salary and golden parachute.
But especially if said CEO happens to be the big cheese of their favorite company.

But one should ask, why does TH deem this a worthy technological subject??

Have you forgotten how crappy AMD was until Lisa Su came on board? Zen came out and they caught Intel with their pants down. Then we had competition, which created better products. The era of the 5-10% increase in performance was over (for the most part).

So tell me, was it worth it? Is Su's salary worth it? I think it is, but I probably haven't changed your mind. Yeah, it's a lot lot of money and yes, she guides a very large company. I don't think you could handle the job.

You are free to disagree and waste your time and bandwidth as well. Cheers!

 

[deadsmiley]

I have a saying:

"When you have a monkey for a CEO, pay them in bananas!"
I would definitely classify Paul Gelsinger as a monkey based on his antics:

Having said that, I think that comparing the salaries of the uber-rich is in pretty poor taste. Most people on this site would probably struggle to afford an RX 7800 XT. I say that because this is the world that these overpaid corporate pricx have created.

The amount of money that corporate executives are paid is irrelevant to 99.9% of people. The inference that there's anything fair about it is also pretty offensive. Just who was this article meant for? I ask because it sure wasn't meant for us.

This is one of the most tone-deaf articles that I have ever read on a tech site.

You are free to be offended. You could not do that job and I couldn't either. People here act like CEO's do nothing for money. It's the same as any other job. If you don't perform, you get the axe.

I really don't care what they are paid.

 

[Wimpers]

These salaries are completely fraudulent to begin with... I can't fathom why Tomshardware is highlighting this as if the Intel golden circle member make less than the AMD one is some how a travesty of justice. Here's how this criminal activity works:

Most CEOs sit on each others boards and vote themselves higher pay at the expense of their workers and shareholders. Every year their pay packages balloon a little more, with each new high watermark in compensation raising the yachts of all executives (because in CEO land, pay is based on what the other CEOs get) while the boat-less employees get left behind decade after decade. The corporate controlled media then jumps in and trumpets how valuable the executives are based on their completely engineered salaries (because gosh darn it, if the CEOs weren't worth that much they wouldn't be getting paid that much) and people like Jim Cramer jump to their defense like a loaded spring when those stories are challenged for being the propaganda they are.

In 1950 CEOs made 20-1 the average worker. In 1980 it was 42-1. In 2000 it was 120-1. In 2014 it is 204-1.

This did not happen by happy accident.

Nope, it's greed, plain and simple. And blatant disrespect for ordinary customers while shareholders getting always more.
And when things go awry, guess what suckers have to save them? Governments they otherwise despise because of taxes, why not let them burn for once?

 

[passivecool]

Thanks everyone for the entertainment. It is seldom one sees so much foam around the mouth from people saying "I don't care!'

I would suggest that the gist of the article is, that in the last years, AMD has performed, relatively speaking, extremely well, and INTEL, mmmmh, not quite so much. This has paid out for Management.

Now, I must admit, I have a bit of a blue-grudge-chip on my shoulder – for waiting and waiting a decade in vain for something attractive to come to replace my 3xi7k workhorse – and I am quite happy with the value of the replacement R9 chip under my desk. I am very glad for the competition which has arisen. I have profited from it, and i expect, I will again.
I'm not quite so worried about the color. But I need bang for the Buck.

Fact is, AMD has, in the past years, soared, and INTEL is in the unfortunate, but self-induced position, where it needs to invest... the kind of numbers that always want to shorten themselves to some sort of math expression I don't understand in my excel sheets.

Blue-grudge aside, I have observed that our good old bible-thumping pat seems to have induced the Turning of the Tanker-Ship blue.

As we can see from Boeing, it is good for a company that produces hardware, when an engineer holds the helm. The worst possible leadership solution seems to be a capitalist mercenary bookkeeper market leech. Okay, that is too many adjectives, but you probably get what i mean. RIP Boeing, a victim of capital market greed.

Pat's been collecting a few tr. in subsidies for fabs worldwide and has re-engineered substantial parts of the Big Blue.

Having once - long ago - been remotely involved in the implementation of a long-term-incentive-bonus-system for management of a multinational ... I think in the long game we don't have to be concerned with Pat's financial well being.

Not like we really were before.

p.s.
Although i still root for team red ;-)