For the first time in its history, Yahoo suspended employee pay increases for 2009, while its newly appointed CEO will receive an $8 million “grant” next month!
Actually Yahoo CEO Carol Bratz should lead by example and at least relinquish her salary of $1 million, as did other Silicon Valley leaders like Cisco CEO John Chambers during harsh times or Steve Jobs who receives $1 in pay or the Google boys.
According to the Sunnyvale, Calif.-company filing to the SEC, Bratz will also receive an annual bonus that could exceed $4 million depending on performance; 5 million, 7-year options; annual equity grants (her 2009 grant will be worth $8 million; a $150,000 grant to cover advisory fees connected to her employment contract; and a $10 million equity grant that will cover the equity grants and medical coverage she gave up when she left Autodesk.
All in all, Bratz compensation package is valued at $40 million.
Yahoo’s compensation committee should also be fired for awarding Bratz that $8 million “grant”. That’d should be enough to pay for a small pay increase, no? 
Here’s an excerpt of Bratz’s compensation package as described in her employment contract:
You [Bratz] shall be granted annual equity grants, with due regard for your position, at such time as grants are generally made to other senior executives of the Company, the amount and term of such grants being in the sole discretion of the Compensation Committee.
It is currently contemplated that the 2009 grants will be made in February 2009 and the Company will recommend a grant to you at that time of a grant date value of approximately eight million dollars ($8 million) based on the methodology utilized by the Company to value grants. Such annual grants shall be subject to the same terms and conditions as the standard awards generally granted to other senior executives, except as otherwise provided herein, and made when awards are generally made to other senior executives.
Posted by TechPulse 360 
