The CEOs Who Run the Worst-Performing Companies Have a Stunning Thing in Common

The recent example of Marissa Mayer at sadly under-performing — and now sold to Verizon — Yahoo suggests that she may get more than $50 million if the purchase leads to her departure. Actually, let’s talk about money. Corporate governance research firm MSCI decided to look at whether there’s some link between large lucre and large failure. The first sentence of its executive summary makes for deliciously sad reading: “Has CEO pay reflected long-term stock performance? In a word, ‘no.'” Ah. The second sentence doesn’t make things sound better: “Companies that awarded their Chief Executive Officers higher equity incentives had below-median returns based on a sample of 429 large-cap US companies observed between 2006 and 2015.”