Performance pay that requires you to hit multiple metrics over a number of years, metrics you may or may not hit, due to unpredictable factors within and outside of your control, is not comparable to guaranteed wage income in a single year.

That's my point. Their CEO has a W-2 salary and cash bonus. It is about $5m a year. They should use that. We all know the reason they pull forward the next 3 years of maybe money and compare it against a part-time barista's single year pay. Because it juices the ratio and makes for a more outrageous headline. But it's dishonest. Starbucks CEO is not paid $98m per annum.

> is not comparable to guaranteed wage income...

Funnily enough, wage income for nearly all USians is not guaranteed. For most of us, you have to keep hitting performance targets to earn subsequent paychecks. Sometimes (as many of us in the tech sector, and so, so many in the movie and video games sector know) you get that income taken away from you for no real reason at all.

> ...in a single year.

(To keep things simple in the following, I'm going to assume that Starbucks' fiscal years line up with calendar years, even though I'm certain that they do not.)

Sure, that objection of yours I sort of agree with. He gets a ten million signing bonus [0] and ~30 million in stock just for signing up, with ~45 million in additional stock gated behind continued job performance. The guy only starts getting 10.8 million per year (through the LTIP) in FY2025, with an equity bonus of 13.8 million and a cash bonus with target value of 3.6 million and maximum-planned value of 7.2 million.

Having said that, it does look like the annual cash bonus starts immediately:

> Your annual cash bonus for FY2024 will be pro-rated based on your Start Date and, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the foregoing, will be calculated by multiplying (i) the annual cash bonus due based on actual performance for FY2024 by (ii) a fraction, (A) the numerator of which is the number of calendar days from the Start Date through September 30, 2024, and (B) the denominator of which is 366.

Another thing that's very important to look into: How often do these CEOs fail to meet their cash bonus targets? Their stock bonus targets? When I was working a bonus-eligible job, the only people who didn't meet their cash bonus target were folks who were going to be fired soon. (Noone I knew was eligible for bonuses delivered via RSUs.)

If we assume that he's not eligible for stock bonus in 2024, and we assume that his late start only divides his 2024 earnings by four, then (if I haven't fucked up my math) it looks like his Q4 2024 earnings were 41.3 million dollars. That's a little less than half what that article reported, but

a) That's still a lot of money... much, much, much more than most USians will ever make in their life, for four months work.

b) Because of my fiscal year manipulation, It's entirely possible that I'm not counting some money that was actually paid out in calendar year 2024, that would bring the actual payout much closer to the value stated in the article.

[0] I'm counting 100% of that signing bonus as paid up front because the only way he loses any of it is if he gets fired With Cause before he hits the six-month mark. If he got disabled on day #2 of his job and had to quit, he'd get 100% of the signing bonus.