Re: [SAGE] SAGE Memo to Members, 9/6/2005

[Philip Brown <phil@bolthole.com>]

On Tue, Sep 13, 2005 at 09:10:27PM -0700, Trey Harris wrote:
> ...
> Many doctors work for non-profits, and many make considerably more than 
> that.  I'm not comparing the work of doctors to the work USENIX or SAGE 
> do, I'm just pointing out that it's not intrinsically true that 
> non-profits would be wasting money paying such a salary.

In the general case, maybe not. 
In our *specific* case, I think it's more of a "maybe so".


> As in any field, you have to look at the going salary range and offer what 
> the market demands for good people, or else settle for not-so-good people. 

Do we really need "the best CEO money can buy" for sage? Or will we be just
fine with "average"?

I'm not aware of any incredibly complex, out of the ordinary executive
management skills that an organization like SAGE requires. Maybe someone
can fill the members in on this account.


To put it another way: Do we really need to pay some stanford graduate
$1XX,000 dollars a year to live semi comfortably in S.F. or L.A or New York
 .....   or could we get just as much value to the organization to pay
[random business school] graduate  $80k a year, to live VERY comfortably
in [xyz, Oklahoma]  ?

I'm presuming that SAGE business is going to be run virtually, in a
graphically disperse manner, and that it does not require some high rent
office in some high cost of living city, to function.
I am also presuming that any business expenses the CEO incurs such as
travel, and so forth, come out of the SAGE treasury, and not out of the
CEO's personal pocket.


> (Some may find it irritating that *anyone* at an organization of X's, be 
> they sysadmins, welders or widget-inspectors, would make more than X's 
> themselves do.  But the CEO of a widget-inspector's association is not a 
> kind of widget-inspector; he or she is, in fact, a CEO.)

To me, it's more a matter of "We're a non-profit. No-one should be making
THAT MUCH 'profit', out of a so-called 'non-profit' organization". I dont
care if you can point out specific other "non-profit" organizations with
high paid CEOs.. It's Just Wrong.