The net money you actually bring home, usually in after-tax and other obligations.
Like...let's say you're a partner in a venture capital company and you make a salary of $1 million a year. Might seem like a ton of money. It may become that if the fund does well...but here's the math in The People's Republic of California: you are taxed about 50 percent off the top. So you have $500k to play with...but you have fund investment obligations, meaning that you have $100-150k a year, usually, that you then have to invest in your fund. You also have 401(k) contributions and other things that come out of your paycheck before taxes. After "everything," you might end up with $300k or so as your take home pay.
Might seem like a lot, but when a dump of a 40-year-old asbestos-filled house costs $5 million, private school for each kid is $50k a year, and alimony for the first spouse is running you $100k a year, the money evaporates...fast. Better hope you find the next GOOG.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is stock based compensatio...7 Views
Finance a la shmoop What is stock based compensation While
investors want management with skin in the game when your
ceo has ninety eight percent of her net worth tied
up in the stock of the company that she's running
well presumably she runs it better or at least in
theory anyway So over time management has been paid in
equity ownership grants as well as in cash that is
company management gets paid in stock options and in stock
or rather shares of the company simply granted to them
in lieu of cash Why do companies not just pay
cash while they want management toe Have that whole ownership
thing going for them to act like owners You know
not just like union employees They want management with direct
stakes in how well or pa poorly the business per
forms in the long run and think about the dynamics
of a ceo getting paid even a relatively huge million
dollars a year in salary and nothing else that's it
well that ceo takes a company from four hundred million
dollars in sales and thirty million in profits to five
years later two billion dollars in sales and for three
Hundred million in profits that is the ceo made the
company at least ten times more valuable certainly ten times
more profitable and in five years that's really good But
that ceo just got their single million dollars a year
each year along the way Well that ceo would not
have financially participated personally in making shareholders so much wealthier
and that's not fair right If management of the company
makes huge returns for investors doesn't it seem right that
management should have huge returns for themselves and not just
a basic salary and male Maybe a little bit of
a bonus there too well some companies loan money at
low interest rates to ceos and other top execs so
that their ableto buy shares in the company leveraged well
Other companies just grant shares to management and still others
just grant stock options is kind of a spiff above
their cash compensation So yeah it's all about having skin
in the game which if you play football without sufficient 00:02:11.45 --> [endTime] padding is a definite possibility
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