Equifax CEO pushed out after data hack getting nearly $20M in bonuses | Hacker News Reader

Equifax CEO pushed out after data hack getting nearly $20M in bonuses

cbsnews.com

102 pointsLopRabbit27 comments

This is the guy who said to Sen. Katie Porter that his SSN is privileged information leaking of which result in identity fraud and significant damages while his lawyers were arguing that their own leak didn't cause any harm? Few people rarely gets caught in their own lie so blatantly. And he even claimed he has no idea what his lawyers were arguing in court about the biggest debacle under his oversight. What a competent CEO.

Here's the exchange with Rep. Porter (she's in the House, not Senate): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUo2ujb0Adc

I'm not an American and get confused with the specifics. But thanks for sharing the link itself. I myself saw the same video and some of first timers in House and their to the point questions a lot.

Wow, thanks for sharing. She handled that very well.

> On top of the stock awards, Equifax has agreed to cover Smith's medical bills for life, a benefit the company estimates is worth another $103,500, according to a company filing.

I guess Equifax assumes death will come swiftly for this man.

I always like it when CEOs get the benefits they claim are too expensive to keep for regular employees. Things like pension and health insurance. At this income level they should get a paycheck and no other benefits. They have enough money to buy other things.

It's a brilliant subversion of the Protestant Work Ethic.

Work is inherently good (I don't agree with this proposition but it's popular even among atheists) and so therefore we must reward workers.

It therefore stands to reason we should reward people more the harder they work

And your income is an adequate proxy for how hard you work

And your wealth is an adequate proxy for income

And so we should reward people for being wealthy

And this ends up with the situation where being an heiress sat on her ass doing nothing but owning an investment portfolio means you deserve tax breaks and above inflation raises, whereas if you put 60 hours per week in as an "independent contractor" for unprofitable new "sharing economy" businesses owned by that portfolio you don't even deserve a living wage.

work is meaningless without productivity, I could work really hard carrying rocks around my yard all day with nothing to show but a sore back

The Protestant Work Ethic says that's fine, you were working and that's what God cares about. Of course your labour is not producing anything, since God is omnipotent all the stuff you might think of as being produced by your labour is actually gifts from God anyway, your work is not valuable for what it produces since God could make everything effortlessly.

And indeed historically this was the actual rationale for a variety of punishments that really were carried out on huge numbers of convicts, including carrying heavy objects from one place to another and back or being forced to raise and lower weights that serve no purpose. "Arbeit Macht Frei" doesn't appear from nowhere as a unique evil idea.

"Arbeit Macht Frei" was just a cynical use of language by the nazis. It shouldn’t be mentioned in this context.

This is a ridiculous representation of Protestant Work Ethic.

Cool story, but I don't see how your example has anything to do with anything previously mentioned. Obviously the entire point the prior statement is that we are applying rewards to "states" rather than actually applying it to any productivity metric.

Better yet, give them the same benefits as other employees and pay them a reasonable amount instead of paying them more money in a year than most of their underlings will make in their lifetimes.

Arguably they should not earn that kind of money.

"The directors of such [joint-stock] companies, however, being the managers rather of other people's money than of their own, it cannot well be expected, that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own.... Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company." - Adam Smith

What ever happened to that one IT guy everything got blamed on?

Later reporting seemed to move away from that claim. The official government report didn't mention the "lone IT guy" at all that I could see.

I mean, I'm not taking the blame away from him and this is a terrible look to be getting paid so much after a colossal screwup, but, in a company that size does the CEO really have any idea of the day to day or inner workings of the company? I worked at a much smaller company and it was pretty clear that they didn't.

Of course not. They're there just for the paycheck...

But on a more serious note his approach on dealing with the fallout was borderline illegal (saying this since he's not in prison). When you take the lion's share of the payouts (between salary and bonuses) you should have to take the lion's share of responsibility.

Every commentary I have read about the situation says it was entirely preventable. This starts at the top, with picking the right people and setting a strategy that creates the perfect conditions for that prevention. Obviously he failed. And once he failed he tried to hide it. We shouldn't read about how much money he's taking home but how much he's paying back and how many years of prison he gets.

The CEO does not, but the CEO should ensure a subordinate is doing a competent job. In this case, if I recall correctly, a web server was not properly patched. Security audits might have caught this. The CEO and board ultimately should have ensured these audits were done. They are a data company. They should protect said data.

As long as investors and fans derive confidence from a frontman, this kind of entertainment will keep paying well

calculated golden parachute, it’s worth it to cut ties quickly for a big company compared to the risks of getting tied up in court, and compared to the potential losses of keeping them around, pretty typical, no financier would spend money they didn’t think they had to spend

Not enough, but at least some palpable penalty that might resonate with others.

He earned $20M in bonus, it was not $20M in fines.

A Japanese client of ours ran into some trouble with the Japanese government due to some financial irregularities, and there was a huge shakeup.. the entire top management was sacked by the owners of the company. Not saying Japan is perfect, there is a lot of crony capitalism there too, but I found it amusing to observe nonetheless. Maybe we need a bit more of that here..

"Survival of the fittest" capitalism only applies to us mortals.

Crime pays well.

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