Jon Rubinstein's new salary: $850,000 per year, Pre-tax
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Jun 12th 2009 6:35AM
posted Jun 12th 2009 6:35AM
The Palm Pre might not be a million dollar idea, but it's close. It'll bag Jon Rubinstein, Palm's new CEO, a cool $850,000 in salary each year according to Palm's Form 8-K just released. Pretty weak sauce for corporate CEOs until you factor in his 100% annual bonus eligibility and stock option grant of 430,000 shares vested monthly over the next 4 years. Given that Rubinstein has been credited with saving Palm from itself, we'd say he's worth every penny. Former CEO Ed Colligan, on the other hand, the man who laughed off the iPhone in November 2006 saying, "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in," will receive $1.2 million just for leaving the seat warm upon exit.
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That's the biggest smile I have seen in days! I don't blame him. :)
Me neither, but just keeps wondering, they guys in the back.. what are they doing? I'll try to break it down:
Guy one to the left: Looks very sick and tired
Guy two with glasses: Really he isn't smiling, he's ready to kill
Guy three: doesn't have any clue of anything
Guy four: That must be a robot
Guy five: Thinks: "Yeaah.. that's pretty cool"
Rubinstein's the man!!!
All hail Rubinstein.....Pre's gonna blow up when it hits Verizon.
Now put a larger keyboard on it!
worth every penny!
Palm, I wish you guys all the luck in the future and maybe one day you'll be back on top, or at least pretty close to the top again!
I'm rich, bitch!
But if the Democrats have their way with controlling corporate salaries..
That would be absolutly amazing but I dont think we will ever see that.
Amazing?
Wow. How very socialist of you.
Half a million is compensation enough for anybody. You'd be okay sending triplets to princeton on that.
@Ethan
I'm just going to shake my head and assume you are either joking or you are under 25 with no real career or responsibilities yet.
@Look_Around_You
How is half a million not more than enough for any *reasonable* life? Do you realize that the poverty line for a family of five is considered to be 24,800 a year? Please just consider these two numbers.
I'm just going to shake my head and assume you give canned responses about socialism and value money above all else.
the CEO cap is only for companies that get significant financial help from the US taxpayers. basically, if we are going to be giving you $100M to keep your company afloat, $5M does not get to go to one person. seems fair to me.
@kid,
Barney Frank wants to extend pay regulations to private companies also.
I'm not trying to start something political. I just believe that people should be allowed to get paid for their worth, regardless of what anyone else may deem excessive.
@barney
i should really change my s/n, since i am no longer a kid anymore lol
i was not aware that Barney Frank wanted to extend it to private companies. while i think that most CEOs are overpaid, it is not the government's place to say what the private sector can or cannot pay their employees. so i agree with you in that regard.
but you are right, no need to start a political debate.
sorry, meant to say @ryan :-P
But... but... we need to take money from those that worked 80+ hours a week to rise up the ladder and give it to the people who don't want to even work 20 hours a week to feed their 14 kids living in a trailer... with another kid on the way.
Seriously, we need to start putting stupid people on birth control or let their own stupidity make them homeless, hungry, and dead.
Yeah, I'm an ass. Live with it.
3 things
A) We live in the US and we believe in the right to act as we choose. If a company wants to pay a salary of eleventy billion dollars it is their right. If you don't like that sell/don't buy their stock, it is your right.
B) We live in a global market place in which competition for individuals with certain skill sets are in demand accross the globe. If you want to limit salaries in the US, the congrats to Ericsonn, Nokia, Sony, Toyota, etc. etc. Your compitition for premium CEO talent was just eliminated...
C) $850,000/year is really, really cheap for a top notch CEO. I actually can't believe they got him that cheap.
@Therevelation, @Ryan:
Give it up. You're in the wrong forum making comments that make sense and has made this nation great for the last 233 years. Your political comments here won't be appreciated unless you say something about helping Darfur or free Tibet. Basically, you have to say some left-wing approved battle-cry or something. Otherwise you will be seen as an insensitive, racist, homophobe, bible-thumping, gun-loving, Rush Dito head a$$hole here. Wrong crowd. It's what happens in the biggest collection of smart college kids on the web.
I for one agree with your comments and think we need a civilian commission to set all politician salaries based on their performance and outlook since they're getting 100% of our tax dollars to pay their salaries and their 8 year old's extravagant birthday parties. Where's the sensation about that ridiculous expense? How may kids in Darfur could that birthday party have fed? The whole country? Let the flaming of apeguero begin by the very inclusive and tolerant left...
hey ever think that because all of the smart college kids think the same way that . . . we're right? because we are. thanks.
$850k? For a guy helping his company? Eat. A. Dick.
This is not a moron getting tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for running a bank and by extension half a country in to the ground.
@bolezhinkov
Yea, I'm a college student and the reality is that college kids are too young to really know what they are talking about, to have had experience in the real world like older people do. The funny thing is, these older, more experienced people are much more likely to be Conservative than college kids, who are typically brainwashed by their left-winged professors (Trust me, I go to one of the most liberal colleges in America). And those professors are, many times, left-over hippies from the 60s and 70s, who either really love teaching (which is great), or can't find another job because they don't want to put out the effort to find one. These are the professors that have 2 to 3 classes a day, work sub-40 hours a week, and are basically off the whole summer. Meanwhile, they are wondering why they don't get paid as much as the people that put in 50, 60, and 70 hour workweeks, and plead for some kind of legislation from the Democrats that forces the colleges to pay them more. Since these democrats have so much "empathy" (more like a need for votes), they try as hard as they can to pass these regulations for these lazy professors.
The bottom line is, youth ignorance is blinding.
College kids, or young adults here are smart. Very smart. Yes, indeed. Are you right? It's up to interpretation and belief, no? It only makes me wonder why the multitude of Conservatives out there are outside of the typical college age. Maybe once people live their lives a little and experience this whole Society experiment from the left is when they decide that something's afoul. Someday many of you will have kids and will find yourselves struggling and unable to get help from the Government because you make just above that imaginary rich line (I forget what it is now, 50k/year). You'll also find your money wasting away at every single tax imaginable. Yet you'll see how many live in this country that have contributed nothing, keep having kids, squeeze everything they can from the social welfare system (housing, food stamps, welfare, free education, free car, free drugs, free furniture and electronics - yes I live in Massachusetts). Then, maybe then you'll ask yourself if we really need this. There are two types in this country that live the good life, those that are too rich to notice and those that are too poor to care. Meanwhile you have the rest of us stuck in the middle trying to make ends meet. Remember, re-education takes time and money too. It's not instant. That's all I have to say. Now back to your regularly scheduled program and enough politics. It's Friday.
Oh yes, and BTW, I do sort of agree with the Obama administration on the whole Pay Czar for these companies that have benefited from TARP. As long as it's for those companies only. One good thing that should come out of this is these companies will think long and hard before they come begging again! I do tend to believe on tough love sometimes :)
What's wrong with capping Executive salaries? This guy did not act alone. He had at least a few employees that bore the brunt of getting the Pre into retail and none of them make $850K.
Government should have no authority over determining the salaries of those who don't work for the government. End of story.
Y'know what the real difference is between bank CEOs (even the non-bailed out ones) and a CEO like Rubenstein?
The banks were paying their CEOs to make grander and grander illusions. Palm's paying their CEO to make awesomer and more useful stuff.
What Palm is doing is what American business should really be about.
"What's wrong with capping Executive salaries?"
CEOs are the first in line to be fired if the company doesn't perform. They are the final say in what direction the company is to go. If you want competent executives that know the consequences of decisions they make, you are going to have to pay top dollar for them. If you cap CEO pay at a set amount, they will be less likely to make informed decisions because less is on the line. The smart ones will move to companies where they get better pay and you'll likely get someone in there with little to no experience running a billion or multi-million dollar company. CEOs don't just sit on their hands all day and collect a paycheck. They make strategic moves about where and how the company will head in the next few years.
If you had 2.5 billion dollars/year on the line, would you hire a homeless person off the street to manage your money or would you hire someone with a few million/year?
Another idiot republican trying to twist the facts..
The salary cap was ONLY FOR BAIL-OUT COMPANIES, and it came about because of the public outrage over the ridiculous amounts of money being wasted on executives while their companies were teetering on bankruptcy.
And the bail-outs themselves were as far from "socialism" as it gets --- they were meant to stabilize and strengthen the FREE MARKET. Keeping the free market from collapsing on itself because of greed and recklessness is actually the best hedge AGAINST populist socialism coming from a major global depression.
with Obama's new tax bracket he's gonna be paying a lot of taxes...
Damn, the guy must be glad he quit Apple!
He has to pay tax on the Pre?
Jakob,
I think your on the right track, but this is probably what's really going on....
Guy One: “I guess I didn’t have to start this line after work yesterday and spend the night here…..Stupid!”
Guy Two: “I can’t wait to hit on that chick up there after I get the new Palm.”
Guy Three: “I can’t wait to hit on Mr. Rubinstein after I get the new Palm.”
Guy Four: “Must…Destroy…World….”
Guy Five: “Did I just see an LED light flash under the skin of this bald dudes head?”
Drat, looks like I'm in the wrong job. Again...
Pre-tax: I see what you did there.
100% annual bonus, damn. Thats sick. And like their not going to give it to him. so really he's around 1.7mil. I wish I got those kind of bonus's. I didn't even get my 3% raise, damn economy.
You couldn't give me palm stock.
Palm has been bleeding money for years-good thing they pay THIS guy so much.
Why do they pay CEOs so much for doing so poorly?
You do realize Palm's stock has gone up over 300% since the announcement of the Pre?
strider shows how much you know about how much salaries are...
Many senior software developers in the United States make well over $100K a year without bonus, give or take based on the complexity of the stuff they work on (in Palm's case, you're talking embedded stuff). You're talking the salary of maybe 10 developers at most.
HA HA HA! Bought my Palm stock the DAY they announced the Pre! I think it was at 4 bux!!! YAY!
The CEOs pay themselves.
Wait did that get cleared with the pat czar?
I'm about ready to kill myself.
Back in December, I considered putting $5,000 into Palm stock when the share price was $1.42, in anticipation that the Pre would be a huge success.
Instead, I picked up a Canon 5D Mk. II and some accessory gear.
If I had gone with my first instinct, I'd be sitting on $46,478 right now. That's like... Bernie Madoff good.
Well done...
It's just money, man. Don't sweat it.
Take that camera you bought and sell some photos or something. Maybe some artsy-looking pics of the Pre to sell back to Palm? :)
lol no wonder he has such a huge smile...whats even more funny is my salary compared to his.
Rubenstein is a multimillionaire from Apple. He could afford to work for Palm for free and not hurt. That said he deserves a fair salary. The definition of fair being 1/2 of what I make :)
(...not anywhere near his current salary)