Do IT Execs Make Too Much Money?

The contentious issue of executive compensation is back in the news following the vote Tuesday by Citigroup shareholders to oppose the pay packages for its CEO and other top execs. The class warriors at The New York Times seized on the opportunity to editorialize in their news pages about national "income inequality" and "outsized compensation," suggesting that "anger over pay for chief executives has spread from Occupy Wall Street to wealthy institutional investors."

It's highly doubtful that those institutional investors, wealthy or otherwise, are now carrying the mantel of the OWS crowd. But clearly there's a movement afoot to hold executives more accountable and tie their pay more closely to performance. Last year, for instance, Hewlett-Packard shareholders for the first time voted to reject the compensation packages of top company executives, including CEO Leo Apotheker, who was forced to resign later in the year as HP struggled to define its strategy, excite its customers, and boost its profits. In May 2010, Motorola became the first U.S. company to fail to earn majority shareholder support for its proposed executive compensation plan.