Why CEO's Should Take a Pay Cut
Revealing the highest-paid CEOs in the country. CEO of Charter Communications, Thomas Rutledge, tops the list, earning $98M a year. (The average Charter employee makes $40,000 annually.) Many people are left wondering: Are CEOs being paid too much?
Most CEOs see their large paychecks as a fair trade for the excessive amount of work they put into their company. As a CEO who traveled 150 days a year and spent most of my waking hours obsessively growing my company, a big paycheck felt like my solace for all the things I missed—the kids’ softball games, the family dinners, etc. But, after a few years, I began to realize that my paycheck wasn’t making up for that stuff, and additionally, it wasn’t helping my company to grow. I was trying to do everything myself, and I was burning out quickly.
I finally found that I needed to change the way I approached my salary.
I realized that I could take home $500K every year and not have a personal life, or I could take home $200K and hire a strong second in command for $300K. Doing so not only dramatically reduced my traveling and allowed me to be more available to my kids, but it also meant that I had more brainpower and more innovation on my team. I wasn’t trying to do it all. I had a co-pilot who could help me build my company and offer unique insights that I might have missed.
Revealing the highest-paid CEOs in the country. CEO of Charter Communications, Thomas Rutledge, tops the list, earning $98M a year. (The average Charter employee makes $40,000 annually.) Many people are left wondering: Are CEOs being paid too much?
Most CEOs see their large paychecks as a fair trade for the excessive amount of work they put into their company. As a CEO who traveled 150 days a year and spent most of my waking hours obsessively growing my company, a big paycheck felt like my solace for all the things I missed—the kids’ softball games, the family dinners, etc. But, after a few years, I began to realize that my paycheck wasn’t making up for that stuff, and additionally, it wasn’t helping my company to grow. I was trying to do everything myself, and I was burning out quickly.
I finally found that I needed to change the way I approached my salary.
I realized that I could take home $500K every year and not have a personal life, or I could take home $200K and hire a strong second in command for $300K. Doing so not only dramatically reduced my traveling and allowed me to be more available to my kids, but it also meant that I had more brainpower and more innovation on my team. I wasn’t trying to do it all. I had a co-pilot who could help me build my company and offer unique insights that I might have missed.
