$80K a Year
Interviewer: Throughout your whole career at Amazon, it appears you paid yourself about $80,000 a year in total cash comp and never took additional equity in the company.
Bezos: No, I never did. I asked the comp committee of the board not to give me any comp. My view was — I was a founder, I already owned a significant amount of the company. I just didn't feel good about taking more.
I asked the comp committee not to give me any comp. I already owned a significant amount. I just didn't feel good about taking more.
Owner-Operators Don't Need Incentive
Bezos: I had plenty of incentive. I owned more than 10% of the company — earlier, before dilution, more than 20%. How could I possibly need more incentive? Most founders own big chunks of the company. They're more like owner-operators. The way they increase their wealth is not by getting more equity — they just want to make the equity they have more valuable.
I would have felt icky about it. I'm actually very proud of that decision.
How could I possibly need more incentive? I would have felt icky about it.
A Better List Than Forbes
Bezos: Somebody needs to make a list where they rank people by how much wealth they've created for other people. Instead of the Forbes list, which ranks you by your own wealth.
Amazon's market cap is $2.3 trillion today. I own about $200 billion of it. So if you subtract the piece I kept, I've created something like $2.1 trillion of wealth for other people. That should put me pretty high on some kind of list.
People like Jensen at NVIDIA — he's going to be very high on that list. That would be a pretty cool list. How much wealth have you created for other people?
Rank people by how much wealth they've created for others. That's a better list than Forbes.