> I recognize my behavior at that moment did not reflect our values at SAP.
This line in corporate apology statements is so weird, like SAP had some unique higher ethical code that opposed sexual harassment, which only one called to the service of humanity as a SAP executive would understand. I guess whoever writes these things always throws it in to try to subtly reassure people that it's not systemic?
It’s a condition of the payout (along with a huge NDA I’m sure) for exactly that reason.
Otherwise, in theory the CTO would be free to make a giant mess with ‘everyone was fucking each other’s wives, and I got confused which one I was doing today so here we are’.
I’m sure whatever group cut the check feels it was worth it.
Most people don't realize that many CxOs have employment contracts with a set term (that has to be renewed), pay schedules and pre-negotiated departure payout.
I'm not saying whether or not this payout is right. What I'm saying is, it was probably required due to contractual employment terms negotiated years ago.
Seems there's a case to be made for SAP to alter any future contracts of that nature to contain a clause that if you're leaving for a serious breach you get nothing. Willy Wonka style.
Any competent exec should be able to logically weigh the consequences of their actions. If something will get them fired and they choose to do it anyway, they deserve to be fired. That's not a perverse incentive, it's weeding out incompetents.
What does competence have to do with anything here?
Certain people are not fit to be leaders, because they have abusive personality disorders; unfortunately many of them currently are in leadership positions.
Unfortunately since these sorts of arrangements are pretty standard nowadays, companies that don't include them will be at a disadvantage when looking to hire executives.
I love how, idk, 5000 years into civilization we, as a species, still can't consistently find ways to keep psychopaths from screwing the rest of us without them getting enough resources to last the majority of people in a given society a lifetime.
The more a position is competitive and the more likelly it is a psychopath will have it.
Think of it this way: to be a piano teacher, you have to be good at piano and good at competing with other teachers. The hard part is becoming good at piano. The fact that there are other piano teachers in the vincinity does not really prevent anyone to establish himself as a new one. So, it's not very competitive.
To be the CTO of a fortune 500 though, you must be good at whatever skill is needed of a CTO but you also have to fight hard against all others candidates. So the position is very competitive. If you reach it, it's mostly because you are good at competing for a rare position; it is secondary whether you are technicaly better or not.
Psychopaths, because they feel no shame and no remorse, are much better than average at competing.
Not sure that would apply here. Every directors and officers contract I’ve seen or signed has clawback provisions and break clauses for gross misconduct and that type of thing. Then there is a (tense) negotiation about on the one hand whether to enforce those and on the other hand sue and make damaging public allegations and then hopefully common sense prevails and people settle for something less than the full payment but more than zero.
SAP (given what I know about German business culture which isn’t much but isn’t nothing either) could probably have toughed it out if they had wanted to but 7 bucks probably isn’t the full payout either given RSUs etc.
Reading the article my biggest take away is how low executive compensations are in Germany compared to the US. The top ranking ICs at US tech companies can hit low 7 figures!
Your take away does not go far enough. It's not executive compensations. It's compensation generally, it's all much much much lower than in the US. Many Germans consider 70-90k as already making bank and a high salary that you can ride out until retirement. And the COL isn't low either and quite similar to the US. Europe is just far behind the US when it comes to salaries. Which shows that there is a lot to lose for US engineers.
Salaries are not set according to how much you need the money. The reason US salaries are high is that US software companies can make staggering amounts of money.
> Salaries are not set according to how much you need the money.
This is not true at all.
When I started working at Microsoft in 2007, Microsoft was one of the most profitable tech companies of all time. (They still are!)
Salaries in the Pacific Northwest were around 1/2 to 2/3rds what they were in the bay area, and total comp was a lot less, since MS's stock was flatlined at the time.
But do you know what we all told each other?
"Housing here is cheap, traffic isn't bad, it isn't worth it to move to the Bay Area."
A senior engineer is happy earning 130K a year if they can get a good house for 500 or 600k!
Once housing prices started exploding, salaries had to go up.
(The other counterpoint would be that many companies have location specific CoL adjustment to their salary bands)
> The reason US salaries are high is that US software companies can make staggering amounts of money.
SAP makes staggering amounts of money!
For knowledge workers, salaries are very disconnected from how much value the employee brings to the company.
SAP also makes a lot of money. It's not purely related to how much a company makes. There are German companies that generate a shit ton of revenue, but they still pay way lower salaries. The mechanism how salaries come about are much more complex than that.
Nah, chances are the guy was born rich. These kind of management positions in Germany are reserved for rich people. In fact according to his bio it appears that he went from doing a PhD in IT to being head of a department at SAP and then a few years later he is CTO. That's connections and nepotism, and you don't get those connections without being already rich.
You can pull off over $200k/yr and never touch the principal. If you can let it sit for a decade it will ~double in terms of purchasing to just a hair under $14M. Another ten years on top of that and you're retiring at 58 (still "early") with $27.5M in today's-dollars purchasing power.
Personally I'd probably just live off $200k starting today but there's a hell of an argument for retiring before 50 and still having ~$350k/yr in purchasing power.
Isn't that really just "hush money", i.e. non-disclosure and non-compete?
And yes, to my fellow commenters, "something big is (indeed) wrong" not just there but all over the world, because most everyone has the same corporate mechanisms, filled with the same corporate mules, slinging the same corporate "economic slavery", as Bob Marley so eloquently and beautifully put it so long ago.
> I recognize my behavior at that moment did not reflect our values at SAP.
This line in corporate apology statements is so weird, like SAP had some unique higher ethical code that opposed sexual harassment, which only one called to the service of humanity as a SAP executive would understand. I guess whoever writes these things always throws it in to try to subtly reassure people that it's not systemic?
It’s a condition of the payout (along with a huge NDA I’m sure) for exactly that reason.
Otherwise, in theory the CTO would be free to make a giant mess with ‘everyone was fucking each other’s wives, and I got confused which one I was doing today so here we are’.
I’m sure whatever group cut the check feels it was worth it.
Most people don't realize that many CxOs have employment contracts with a set term (that has to be renewed), pay schedules and pre-negotiated departure payout.
I'm not saying whether or not this payout is right. What I'm saying is, it was probably required due to contractual employment terms negotiated years ago.
Seems there's a case to be made for SAP to alter any future contracts of that nature to contain a clause that if you're leaving for a serious breach you get nothing. Willy Wonka style.
"Don't go away angry, just go away"
It's entirely possible that it's cheaper than a lawsuit and potential further reputational harm.
Perverse incentive alert: If you want to fire an exec cheaply, just do an internal honey pot.
Any competent exec should be able to logically weigh the consequences of their actions. If something will get them fired and they choose to do it anyway, they deserve to be fired. That's not a perverse incentive, it's weeding out incompetents.
What does competence have to do with anything here?
Certain people are not fit to be leaders, because they have abusive personality disorders; unfortunately many of them currently are in leadership positions.
Or better: external, and make him resign.
Unfortunately since these sorts of arrangements are pretty standard nowadays, companies that don't include them will be at a disadvantage when looking to hire executives.
So this is unlikely to change.
I love how, idk, 5000 years into civilization we, as a species, still can't consistently find ways to keep psychopaths from screwing the rest of us without them getting enough resources to last the majority of people in a given society a lifetime.
The more a position is competitive and the more likelly it is a psychopath will have it.
Think of it this way: to be a piano teacher, you have to be good at piano and good at competing with other teachers. The hard part is becoming good at piano. The fact that there are other piano teachers in the vincinity does not really prevent anyone to establish himself as a new one. So, it's not very competitive.
To be the CTO of a fortune 500 though, you must be good at whatever skill is needed of a CTO but you also have to fight hard against all others candidates. So the position is very competitive. If you reach it, it's mostly because you are good at competing for a rare position; it is secondary whether you are technicaly better or not.
Psychopaths, because they feel no shame and no remorse, are much better than average at competing.
Then no white teeth smile execs would ever take a job there.
Meh, seems unlikely this would really count as a serious breach.
Not sure that would apply here. Every directors and officers contract I’ve seen or signed has clawback provisions and break clauses for gross misconduct and that type of thing. Then there is a (tense) negotiation about on the one hand whether to enforce those and on the other hand sue and make damaging public allegations and then hopefully common sense prevails and people settle for something less than the full payment but more than zero.
SAP (given what I know about German business culture which isn’t much but isn’t nothing either) could probably have toughed it out if they had wanted to but 7 bucks probably isn’t the full payout either given RSUs etc.
When things like this happen, it just shows me how little I actually know about the world and how it works.
The world rewards exactly the opposite character features you were teached to develop and cultivate. Including women who select a partner.
A wholly unnecessary addendum with your second sentence that is irrelevant to the matter at hand.
Character features which make one refrain from such addendums also don't pay in life.
If the abused person did not get the same, something big is wrong here
Seven figure plus payouts for something like that are not a thing in Germany. At best, you might get a low four figure number.
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They 'll be lucky if they get to keep their job.
This sounds like some platitude out of a facebooks comment section.
>Criminal probe understood to have ended following settlement over 'inconsiderate' behavior
Is it me or is this open corruption?
Reading the article my biggest take away is how low executive compensations are in Germany compared to the US. The top ranking ICs at US tech companies can hit low 7 figures!
Your take away does not go far enough. It's not executive compensations. It's compensation generally, it's all much much much lower than in the US. Many Germans consider 70-90k as already making bank and a high salary that you can ride out until retirement. And the COL isn't low either and quite similar to the US. Europe is just far behind the US when it comes to salaries. Which shows that there is a lot to lose for US engineers.
The only reason US engineering salaries are high is because of broken housing policies in US coastal cities.
IMHO this will be the downfall of US engineering, the high salaries will make US engineers too uncompetitive.
Salaries are not set according to how much you need the money. The reason US salaries are high is that US software companies can make staggering amounts of money.
> Salaries are not set according to how much you need the money.
This is not true at all.
When I started working at Microsoft in 2007, Microsoft was one of the most profitable tech companies of all time. (They still are!)
Salaries in the Pacific Northwest were around 1/2 to 2/3rds what they were in the bay area, and total comp was a lot less, since MS's stock was flatlined at the time.
But do you know what we all told each other?
"Housing here is cheap, traffic isn't bad, it isn't worth it to move to the Bay Area."
A senior engineer is happy earning 130K a year if they can get a good house for 500 or 600k!
Once housing prices started exploding, salaries had to go up.
(The other counterpoint would be that many companies have location specific CoL adjustment to their salary bands)
> The reason US salaries are high is that US software companies can make staggering amounts of money.
SAP makes staggering amounts of money!
For knowledge workers, salaries are very disconnected from how much value the employee brings to the company.
The point is the mediation via your demands+the way Microsoft and you had a geographic constraint.
SAP also makes a lot of money. It's not purely related to how much a company makes. There are German companies that generate a shit ton of revenue, but they still pay way lower salaries. The mechanism how salaries come about are much more complex than that.
You've got to hand it to white collar criminals/executives. They are stunningly effective at robbery, corruption and abuse with no consequences.
I am perfectly willing to get involved in a scandal for under €5 million
Is this piece supposed to make me feel bad for SAP and their terrible businessess dealings? Lol. You reap what you sow.
His last transaction had to match the size of his ego.
The income tax on such income must had been like 80%. Assuming CxO's pay income tax in Germany.
Many such cases. Sad!
38 years old, 7.1M in the bank.
If he can keep his hands to himself that should be enough for a nice early retirement.
Nah, chances are the guy was born rich. These kind of management positions in Germany are reserved for rich people. In fact according to his bio it appears that he went from doing a PhD in IT to being head of a department at SAP and then a few years later he is CTO. That's connections and nepotism, and you don't get those connections without being already rich.
He did his PhD on the Hasso Plattner Institute under Hasso Plattner himself (SAP co-founder). That secured on the connection part.
Having had a professional episode in Germany I avoided SAP like HIV and luckily I got involved with neither.
I mean it could also be exceptional competence among key customers. This certainly doesn’t have to be nepotism
Going from PhD, not even PostDoc with zero industry experience, to being Head of Department at SAP without connections is unlikely.
He probably already started working for SAP during his PhD or even his PhD is a project from SAP itself.
if you make 100k a year that payout is 71 years worth of your wages. absurd.
Before Uncle Sam gets his cut. Much less after the robbery. How much of the 7 million be sucked up by Germany’s taxes?
If structured properly, Onkel Franz takes equally or less than Uncle Sam.
no you need to pay taxes on the 100k. The 7.1M payout can easily pay a tax lawyer to find some convenient loophole to keep most of it.
average worker will never reach that kind of retirement payout. early or late
CxO get way too much
"Should be" is a joke, right?
You can pull off over $200k/yr and never touch the principal. If you can let it sit for a decade it will ~double in terms of purchasing to just a hair under $14M. Another ten years on top of that and you're retiring at 58 (still "early") with $27.5M in today's-dollars purchasing power.
Personally I'd probably just live off $200k starting today but there's a hell of an argument for retiring before 50 and still having ~$350k/yr in purchasing power.
What would you do with that amount of money at that age?
I guess that’s just the price of good software..
Isn't that really just "hush money", i.e. non-disclosure and non-compete?
And yes, to my fellow commenters, "something big is (indeed) wrong" not just there but all over the world, because most everyone has the same corporate mechanisms, filled with the same corporate mules, slinging the same corporate "economic slavery", as Bob Marley so eloquently and beautifully put it so long ago.
The SAP abbreviation proves itself once again.
Sexual Assault Payout?
rebrand lolz
Man.....I'm all for good executive pay usually, but this is absurd.
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