Why Jonathan Schwartz Sun Microsystems CEO gets $11M 2008 pay package?

This is completely unbelievable. Jonathan Schwartz get’s a 44% increase while the stock has plunged more than 60% in a year? Where can I apply for a job like that? Most of us “ants” here at Sun will be lucky to get yet another 2% increase, if any at all.

The CEO of Sun Microsystems has a few more bucks in his account this year. Sun reports that Chief Executive Jonathon Schwartz’s pay package increased this fiscal year. Schwartz received just over $11 million, a 44% increase from last year’s $7.7 million package. Sun says the pay increase is a result of the company’s recent profitability streak. The increase, however, is only about half of what Schwartz could have received had the company performed better. Sun saw a serious downturn in the second half the 2008 fiscal year.

In fiscal 2007, Schwartz was paid a salary of $1 million and had total compensation of $14.1 million. For fiscal 2008 the Santa Clara company dropped his stock awards by $5.2 million and cut other incentives, reducing his total compensation to $7.7 million, according to Sun’s proxy card. Schwartz got a bonus of $228,000 in the first quarter of fiscal 2008, of $580,000 in the second, $235,000 in the third and no bonus in the fourth quarter, though his target was $800,000 for that quarter.

His salary will remain at $1 million for the next year, too, the company said. Sun’s fiscal year ends in June.

He RIFs thousands, made who made their financial goals, destroys the brand with his software strategy and refuses to admit he should make any changes and he gets a 44% raise. No wonder he has a chauffeur – he already has driven Sun over a cliff…..

Who is Jonathan Schwartz?

Chief Executive Officer and President
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Jonathan Schwartz is chief executive officer and president of Sun Microsystems, and a member of Sun’s board of directors. He became Sun’s CEO in 2006, succeeding the Company’s co-founder and current chairman of the board, Scott McNealy.

Schwartz was promoted to president and chief operating officer in 2004, and managed all operational functions at Sun – from product development and marketing, to global sales and service. An inveterate communicator, Schwartz has led Sun’s drive to engage the marketplace, and redefine corporate transparency. A leader behind many of Sun’s open source and standard setting initiatives, Jonathan’s been an outspoken advocate for the network as a utility with more than just value for the computing industry – but as a tool for driving economic, social and political progress.

Prior to his position as COO, Schwartz served as Sun’s executive vice president for software, its Chief Strategy Officer, and held a variety of leadership positions across product and corporate development. He joined Sun in 1996 after the Company acquired Lighthouse Design, where he was CEO and co-founder. Prior to that, Schwartz was with McKinsey & Co. Schwartz received degrees in economics and mathematics from Wesleyan University.