Companies that are currently paying top earners have seen their share of earnings rise over the past 12 months.
But which companies are earning more?
And how much of that is attributable to the paychecks of their CEOs?
Recode’s chief technology reporter John DeLong and Recode Capital’s chief economist Brian Wieser break it all down.
Recode’s top earnersIn July, Facebook’s Paul Mark wrote an open letter to his company’s board of directors.
Mark said Facebook’s stock price had dropped in recent months as he and other board members took a hard look at the company’s business.
He said that Facebook had been “a good business, but not a great one.”
“We saw too many signs of a decline in revenue and profits that were not really sustainable,” Mark wrote.
Mark’s comments were echoed by other board directors.
The CEOs of Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon have all taken steps to reduce the number of employees in their respective companies.
The leaders of Microsoft and Facebook have also cut the number, and some of those cuts have been for the purpose of reducing the value of their stock.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said last year that his company had made significant cuts to its workforce and that the company was investing $1.3 billion in new research and development.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has also announced plans to cut the size of its workforce.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced in June that his business had shed 30,000 jobs in the past two years.
Microsoft’s Mark Zuckerberg in June, 2017.
Facebook’s Mark Smith in June.
Microsoft, Amazon and Google all have a history of cutting staff and cutting profit.
Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai announced in November that the number one goal for Google was to “reduce our number of people by 10 percent and our cost of living by 20 percent.”
Google’s Chief Financial Officer Amy Brundage has also pledged to reduce costs.
Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Brad Smith in February.
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos in June in a video released by his company.
Google CEO Larry Page in August in a press conference.
Microsoft also announced that its board of Directors had approved a new strategy for its business and it would focus on “building value in the company and delivering results to our shareholders.”
Google, which has a market cap of more than $50 billion, is also investing $10 billion to hire hundreds of employees to improve its tech infrastructure.
The top 5 companies in compensationLast year, Google paid its CEO $18.5 million.
Amazon paid its head of sales $11.5, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg received $10 million, Apple CEO Eric Schmidt received $8 million and Facebook’s CEO Sheryl Sandberg earned $7 million.
Google paid CEO Sundari Pichari $9.3 million, Amazon paid CEO Jeff Bewkes $7.5million and Facebook CEO Sheri Dillon $6.2 million.
The five companies are now paid out $18 billion in compensation.
The bottom 5 companies that are earning the leastSince 2014, the top 5 payers for CEOs are all in Silicon Valley.
Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google are the top five companies that have the highest share of CEOs making less than $100,000 per year.
The average salary for a CEO at these five companies is $2.3m, according to PayScale.
The median salary for the top 20,000 tech executives is $7m.
Apple is second at $6m.
The top 5 also are all located in California, which is the biggest tech market in the world.
The 10 highest-paid CEOsSource: PayScale’s CEO database