MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
I saw this story a few weeks ago on ABC. Look at what is salary is-he also answers his own phone and it sure looks like he treats his employees like human beings, and with kindness and dignity. He refuses to pay them less in order to make more profit-wow.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Business/story?id=1362779
"In an era when many CEOs are seen as greedy and sometimes corrupt, Sinegal is proving that good guys can finish first — and without all the corporate frills. Sinegal even sends out his own faxes from his bare-bones office-without-walls at company headquarters near Seattle. But the most remarkable thing about Sinegal is his salary — $350,000 a year, a fraction of the millions most large corporate CEOs make.
"I figured that if I was making something like 12 times more than the typical person working on the floor, that that was a fair salary," he said.
Of course, as a co-founder of the company, Sinegal owns a lot of Costco's stock — more than $150 million worth. He's rich, but only on paper.
Nell Minow, editor and founder of the Corporate Library and an expert on corporate governance, said she was shocked to discover that Sinegal's employment contract is only a page long. "I would love to clone him," she said.
"Of the 2,000 companies in our database, he has the single shortest CEO employment contract. And the only one, which specifically says, he can be — believe it or not — 'terminated for cause.' If he doesn't do his job, he is out the door," Minow said.
Sinegal admits that "paying high wages [to his employees] is contrary to conventional wisdom."
And conventional wisdom in this case comes from Wall Street. Analysts seem to be the only critics of Costco and Sinegal. They think the company could make even more money if it paid its workers less — like Wal-Mart does.
Sinegal is unfazed by his critics. "Wall Street is in the business of making money between now and next Tuesday," he said. "We're in the business of building an organization, an institution that we hope will be here 50 years from now. And paying good wages and keeping your people working with you is very good business."
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Business/story?id=1362779
"In an era when many CEOs are seen as greedy and sometimes corrupt, Sinegal is proving that good guys can finish first — and without all the corporate frills. Sinegal even sends out his own faxes from his bare-bones office-without-walls at company headquarters near Seattle. But the most remarkable thing about Sinegal is his salary — $350,000 a year, a fraction of the millions most large corporate CEOs make.
"I figured that if I was making something like 12 times more than the typical person working on the floor, that that was a fair salary," he said.
Of course, as a co-founder of the company, Sinegal owns a lot of Costco's stock — more than $150 million worth. He's rich, but only on paper.
Nell Minow, editor and founder of the Corporate Library and an expert on corporate governance, said she was shocked to discover that Sinegal's employment contract is only a page long. "I would love to clone him," she said.
"Of the 2,000 companies in our database, he has the single shortest CEO employment contract. And the only one, which specifically says, he can be — believe it or not — 'terminated for cause.' If he doesn't do his job, he is out the door," Minow said.
Sinegal admits that "paying high wages [to his employees] is contrary to conventional wisdom."
And conventional wisdom in this case comes from Wall Street. Analysts seem to be the only critics of Costco and Sinegal. They think the company could make even more money if it paid its workers less — like Wal-Mart does.
Sinegal is unfazed by his critics. "Wall Street is in the business of making money between now and next Tuesday," he said. "We're in the business of building an organization, an institution that we hope will be here 50 years from now. And paying good wages and keeping your people working with you is very good business."