Not many CEOs can boast of getting paid greater than Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner, who obtained $99 million in complete compensation final yr.
Simply 9 executives can boast a compensation bundle that crosses the $100 million threshold, in response to the Wall Avenue Journal citing information from analytics firm C-Suite Comp. Some are huge names, like Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman (paid $253 million), Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai (paid $216 million) and Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr (paid $182 million).
However one title stands out: Kiwi Camara, the 39-year-old founder and CEO of CS Disco, an Austin-based authorized know-how agency. Camara earned virtually $110 million final yr, combining $500,000 in wage with $109 million in inventory choices, in trade for operating the agency, valued at simply over $500 million. (By comparability, Apple closed at a $3 trillion market capitalization on Friday.)
The Wall Avenue Journal notes that Camara’s inventory choices solely vest if the corporate’s common share worth hits particular targets by 2032, if the corporate is acquired, or if he leaves his place.
Nonetheless, the entire compensation bundle is a large pay leap for the founder, who earned simply $1 million in 2021, in response to the Wall Avenue Journal.
Who’s Kiwi Camara?
Camara’s path to being one of many few CEOs to be paid greater than Tim Cook dinner is a winding one.
Born within the Philippines and moved to the U.S. as an toddler, Camara was the youngest-ever graduate from Harvard Legislation College, incomes his Juris Physician at age 19 in 2004.
But his time at Harvard Legislation was marked by controversy. In 2002, the then-16-year-old regulation pupil uploaded his class notes on-line, revealing that he’d used a racial slur to check with authorized covenants barring Blacks from buying land. Using the phrase spurred an outcry amongst his fellow college students, and resurfaced within the years since. He apologized for utilizing the time period, however claimed in a 2009 interview with ABC Information that the incident stopped him from getting a high-profile job at a regulation college.
Carama later based a regulation agency, Camara & Sibley, which labored professional bono to symbolize the defendant in one of many first circumstances on file-sharing.
In 2006, 4 file labels sued Jammie Thomas-Rassett for downloading and sharing 24 songs on Kazaa, a peer-to-peer community. Whereas Thomas-Rassett was discovered responsible of copyright infringement, the trial lasted for years as each events argued how a lot she owed in damages. At one level, Thomas-Rassett was held answerable for $1.92 million, or $80,000 per music. Finally, the eighth U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals held Thomas-Rassett answerable for $222,000 in damages in 2013.
What’s CS Disco?
Based by Camara in 2013, CS Disco is a know-how firm that gives new applied sciences, like synthetic intelligence and cloud computing, to attorneys and regulation companies. The agency argues on its web site that its providers assist “attorneys spend their time doing what issues most: securing justice for its shoppers and successful a very powerful disputes on this planet.”
The corporate debuted on the New York Inventory Change in July 2021, buying and selling beneath the snappy “LAW” ticker.
The corporate’s shares have carried out poorly since then. The corporate inventory worth peaked at $65.88 in September 2021, however have since fallen 87% to hit $8.40 as of immediately.
CS Disco generated $135.2 million in income in its 2022 fiscal yr, however reported a $70.8 million web loss, up from a $24.3 million web loss the earlier yr.
CS Disco didn’t instantly reply to Fortune’s request for remark.
Who else is paid greater than $100 million?
Camara is one in every of simply 9 CEOs with pay packages exceeding $100 million.
Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman tops the listing with a $253 million pay bundle final yr. Solely three of the 9 CEOs making over $100 million work at S&P 500 corporations: Alphabet’s Pichai, Stay Nation’s Michael Rapino, and Oracle’s Safra Catz.
Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr, Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy, Sarepta Therapeutics CEO Douglas Ingram and Pinterest’s new CEO Invoice Prepared spherical out the listing.
Nonetheless, fewer CEOs broke the $100 million threshold in 2022 than did so the yr earlier than. Over 20 CEOs earned over $100 million in 2021, notes C-Suite Comp. The agency factors to diminished fairness awards for executives for the drop.
Shareholders and buyers are beginning to look skeptically at govt pay. In June, Netflix shareholders voted towards a pay bundle for co-CEO Ted Sarandos, which mixed a $3 million wage, $20 million in inventory, and a doable bonus of as much as $17 million. The vote, which was nonbinding, was achieved on the behest of putting writers.
