World Highest Paid CEO

Posted on by Forest in Saving Money & Finances

World Highest Paid CEO

In the world of corporations and CEO’s it’s hard to measure wealth, income and even conceive the amount of money that gets thrown around. Finding out who exactly is the world’s highest paid is almost a matter of opinion as there are a lot of people quite simply making a bucket load of cash! So, with the aid of a few sources, let’s look at a few of the people who have been highlighted at the highest paid and what they do.

Highest paid CEO of the decade - Larry Ellison, founder and chief executive - Oracle Corp

According to the WSJ Larry is the highest paid CEO in the world based over the last decade. Larry has received $1.84 billion in compensation over the years and all related to software!

Ellison grew up in Chicago with adopted parents and eventually attended the University of Chicago, it was here he encountered software design. By the 70s he was working Ampex Corporation. A project of his there was designing a database for the CIA, he named this database Oracle. Eventually Larry and friends set up their own company and carried on developing the database software. By the time the product was fully developed it was released in 1979 as Oracle v2 (implying that an earlier version, although never released, had dealt with all bugs and teething problems). Oracle is probably the most widely adopted database software in the world leading to Oracle’s huge earnings (although they did suffer in the 90′s) and Larry’s place as highest paid CEO of the decade.

Forbes Highest Paid CEO – Stephen J Hemsley – United Health Group

Forbes say that Stephen was paid $101.96 in 2010 making him the top of their top 25 highest paid CEO list. It’s no surprise that health is somewhere related to a top paid CEO (many of them are in health). His latest compensation packaged is estimated at $48.8 million.

Stephen is a Fordham University grad who previously had a career with Arthur Andersen. In 1997 he joined United Health Group Inc and in 2006 moved up to the position of CEO.

CNN Highest Paid CEO - Philippe P. Dauman – Viacom

CNN named Philippe P. Dauman from Viacom as the highest paid CEO in their April 2011 article. They said that in 2010 he earned $84.5million, received $14million in cash compensation and $70.5million in stock and options compensation.

Phillippe grew up in New York City and in 1978 he graduated from Columbia University School of Law. He went into a career in law. Whilst handling a routine Securities and Exchange Commission for Sumner Redstone, a client of the company he worked for (Volk), he ended up becoming involved, in an advisory position, in the hostile takeover of Viacom by Redstone. This all happened in 1986-87. He joined Viacom as Vice President and General Counsel 6 years later. He became CEO in 2006.

World Highest Paid CEO

Seeing the kind of money and backgrounds these people come from it shows that they did likely work hard to get where they are but with so much wealth at he top you can understand why so many people feel disgruntled by the whole thing these days. Basically, according to this list, databases (used in banking), health and entertainment are 3 of the most earning industries in the world, at least for these guys!