News Su, Papermaster Poised to Rake in Huge AMD Bonuses

[Admin]

AMD is willing to pay out big rewards to Lisa Su and Mark Papermaster to both stay on board and hit performance goals.

Su, Papermaster Poised to Rake in Huge AMD Bonuses : Read more

 

[TheSecondPower]

I get that consistency and great executives are good for the company, but it's not good for moral to give the CEO a raise the size of an entry-level engineer's salary and a bonus big enough to pay the salaries of over 150 senior engineers. I know other companies are worse at this but it's still disheartening for everybody else in the company.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

ah, but such is Capitalism. Would you rather it be communistic and only the upper echelon keep all of it instead? (hint, it's almost the SAME THING)

capitalism leads to the same thing communism does, the pyramid, only the few at the top make anything. difference is capitalism works better and making the rich richer (longer) and takes a much longer time to destroy the underclass

 

[TheSecondPower]

I'm not a fan of communism, I just think that the stockholders and executives should, by there own free will, recognize the harmfulness of what they're doing. The free market will probably sort this out via less profitable ARM competitors becoming more capable.

 

[apone]

ah, but such is Capitalism. Would you rather it be communistic and only the upper echelon keep all of it instead? (hint, it's almost the SAME THING)

capitalism leads to the same thing communism does, the pyramid, only the few at the top make anything. difference is capitalism works better and making the rich richer (longer) and takes a much longer time to destroy the underclass

Why the assumption that everyone who works under a CEO is making peanuts? You're also assuming low and mid-level employees are incapable of career advancement (at AMD or elsewhere) and are perpetually stuck in their respective (consented) salaries.

Sure, CEO's like Jeff Bezos are multi-billionaires but they've also created thousands of jobs, helped people make extra cash via side gigs, and improved the consumer lifestyle (e.g. Amazon Prime).

 

[apone]

I get that consistency and great executives are good for the company, but it's not good for moral to give the CEO a raise the size of an entry-level engineer's salary and a bonus big enough to pay the salaries of over 150 senior engineers. I know other companies are worse at this but it's still disheartening for everybody else in the company.

Why is Dr. Su at fault for bringing the company back from years of CPU mediocrity to spanking Intel? (A first for AMD considering their traditional MO) Every employee at AMD consented to their salary and are free to leave to start their own business or switch to a better-paying job at any time (aka career mobility). Also just because Dr. Su is getting a 25x bonus doesn't mean other employees are being robbed of their legally-obligated compensation.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

lol

 

[JQB45]

I see nothing wrong with awarding people for great leadership and rather remarkable and outstanding performance and giving them goals to hit to continue to improve not only the companies products, market share, technology and stock price. Keep in mind just because the CEO and COO bonuses make the news that does not mean the other top performers down to your 2nd year engineers are not also getting what in there eyes is also excellent bonuses for their contributions as well.

As a former junior, senior software engineer and lead developer I know others made larger bonuses but I got substantial bonuses as well when I showed my commitment to time and performance as well. It pays to be a top contributor and show some semblance of commitment to most companies large and small, especially those that get purchased by a bigger company.

 

[Co BIY]

Work one year for a bad leader and $25 million (over 4 committed years , if the fickle market continues to reward the good work of the company, things keep going great, trade wars don't sink you, your competition doesn't do an "Empire Strikes Back" to you and there is no industry devastating disruptive innovation no one knows about yet) sounds like a good deal for great leadership.

She obviously has great confidence in herself and the market to take such a low base salary (less than the minimum salary allowed for a US NBA basketball player) with large market based incentives. Right now it looks like it paid off.

 

[TheSecondPower]

I think I might be wrong. Given the (relatively) low base salary with a big bonus system and the likely fact that many other people in the company have also been richly rewarded, the bonus is probably somewhat reasonable.

 

[bit_user]

I get that consistency and great executives are good for the company, but it's not good for moral to give the CEO a raise the size of an entry-level engineer's salary

Morale? They just have to check the stock price, if they need a morale boost. I'm pretty sure all their engineers have stock options, nearly all of which should be above water.

I'm just as concerned about executive compensation as anyone, but I think she's unquestionably earned a bonus and companies typically have executive compensation committees to make sure their compensation packages and awards are in line with current practices.

I'd suggest reserving your outrage for the execs that resign in disgrace, yet still get big payouts, thanks to their golden parachutes (I seem to recall this happened after the Equifax data breach, or something like that). Or CEOs that get bonuses for cutting costs by initiating massive layoffs and off-shoring efforts.

bonus big enough to pay the salaries of over 150 senior engineers.

Except it doesn't work like that. The shares & options vest over a 5-year period. I think the value is projected based on the current share price, but it might be lower.

If they were to actually hire those engineers, they would incur those costs annually. Also, your estimate doesn't seem to cover various overheads.

I know other companies are worse at this but it's still disheartening for everybody else in the company.

What would be far more disheartening would be to lose competent executives, especially in light of the previous clowns who helped dig such a hole for AMD that they've been struggling to get out of.

 

[bit_user]

I just think that the stockholders and executives should, by there own free will, recognize the harmfulness of what they're doing.

If you want to fix executive compensation, you can't just single out one company, especially if it's not even an egregious example.

The way to fix it is through structural reform via securities laws. CEO's shouldn't get to nominate board members. That's where I'd start. If the board were truly and purely advocates of investors, they'd be much more focused on ensuring the company is getting good value for the money it spends on executive compensation.

Of course, one effect that would probably have is more companies going (or staying) private. And those are like black boxes. We only get to know this about AMD because it's publicly-traded. I'm not sure how much legal standing the government would even have (if, you know, somehow Congress miraculously decided to pass some laws on this), to force private companies to disclose their finances. At least, not as long as companies remain legal "persons".

 

[NightHawkRMX]

I see no issue with rewarding a person for their achievements and strong leadership.

When Lisa Sue joined AMD in 2012, AMD really wasn't competitive. AMD offered high TDP 8 core CPUs that got whooped by way cheaper Intel dual cores that consumed less power. Thanks to Lisa's leadership and other factors, AMD is now a strong contender in both the GPU and CPU markets.

AMD APUs power nearly ALL current-gen and upcoming consoles.

AMD Ryzen processors offer such excellent performance and strong value that they are commonly the preferred pick for gaming and content creation systems alike.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPUs offer a lot of cores with reduced single-threaded performance compared to intel HEDT chips. 3rd gen threadripper may also deliver impressive single-core performance with more cores than Intel offers.

AMD EPYC processors are gaining traction in the data center market space as they offer more cores and performance per watt than current Intel Xeon CPUs.

AMD Ryzen mobile CPUs offer decent CPU performance and powerful vega graphics, but they still have a long way to come in this industry.

AMD Radeon cards are a popular choice currently, but team green offers fierce competition in this field. AMD's recent NAVI architecture may help AMD to grab additional market share in the consumer discrete GPU market.

 

[Co BIY]

I think I might be wrong. Given the (relatively) low base salary with a big bonus system and the likely fact that many other people in the company have also been richly rewarded, the bonus is probably somewhat reasonable.

You'll never get anywhere in internet commentary with an open mind like that.

In real life though it's a huge asset.