The median pay for CEOs at 50 tech companies was $11.5 million in 2014, according to Network World’s analysis of compensation packages.
John Chen was the highest-paid CEO in our ranking. Chen was hired in late 2013 to attempt a revival of BlackBerry, and nearly all of his compensation – valued at $85.8 million — came in the form of restricted stock awards that are scheduled to vest over a five-year period.
Satya Nadella, who was named CEO of Microsoft in February 2014, was second on the list with a pay package worth $84.3 million. Larry Ellison rounded out the top three with a pay package valued at $67.3 million for his final full year as Oracle’s CEO.
The lowest paid CEO is Google’s Larry Page, who voluntarily opted for a token $1 salary, as he has since 2004, and declined any bonuses and new equity awards.
Cash compensation – salaries and bonuses – played a big role in pay last year.
Brian Roberts of Comcast took home the biggest cash payout. Roberts received both the highest salary ($2.9 million) and the largest cash bonus ($9 million) among all 50 pay packages examined, for a total of $11.9 million in cash. His total compensation was valued at $33 million.
Another cash-heavy pay package went to Avaya CEO Kevin Kennedy. More than half of his $15.7 million compensation was in cash, thanks to a $1.3 million salary and $7.5 million in bonuses. None of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s $9.2 million pay package came in the form of equity grants. Instead, it’s all about cash – including a $1.7 million salary and a $6.7 million cash bonus.
Browse the highlights of CEO pay in our sortable chart. (The “cash + extras” column is the sum of each CEO’s salary, cash bonuses and perquisites.) For specific details on each CEO’s pay package, see our slideshow.
TECH CEO COMPENSATION
| COMPANY CEO | CASH + EXTRAS | EQUITY | TOTAL PAY | CHANGE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google: Larry Page | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0% | |
| Aruba: Dominic Orr | 400540 | 577200 | 977740 | 50% | |
| Progress Software: Philip Pead | 753678 | 2537218 | 3290896 | -77% | |
| Red Hat: Jim Whitehurst | 2013598 | 4678954 | 6692552 | -7% | |
| Akamai: Tom Leighton | 3 | 7499986 | 7499989 | -2% | |
| VeriSign: James Bidzos | 1652917 | 5999948 | 7652865 | -10% | |
| Harris: William Brown | 3096655 | 4750727 | 7847382 | 22% | |
| Citrix: Mark Templeton | 1890351 | 5993263 | 7883614 | -31% | |
| Juniper: Rami Rahim | 1750003 | 6160532 | 7910535 | n/a | |
| Motorola Solutions: Greg Brown | 2203552 | 5765580 | 7969132 | -37% | |
| F5: John McAdam | 1941644 | 6202098 | 8143742 | -1% | |
| CA: Michael Gregoire | 3249402 | 5094820 | 8344222 | 44% | |
| Ingram Micro: Alain Monie | 2882215 | 5500008 | 8382223 | -32% | |
| VMware: Pat Gelsinger | 2296771 | 6242849 | 8539620 | -39% | |
| NetApp: Tom Georgens | 2191740 | 6385835 | 8577575 | 36% | |
| Apple: Tim Cook | 9222638 | 0 | 9222638 | 117% | |
| Brocade: Lloyd Carney | 2664440 | 7410509 | 10074949 | 21% | |
| Level 3: Jeff Storey | 4206861 | 6644000 | 10850861 | 35% | |
| Intel: Brian Krzanich | 4538700 | 6658700 | 11197400 | 17% | |
| EMC: Joe Tucci | 2788207 | 8415112 | 11203319 | -11% | |
| Western Digital: Stephen Milligan | 2805992 | 8484570 | 11290562 | -2% | |
| Cognizant: Francisco D’Souza | 1154962 | 10178101 | 11333063 | 0% | |
| Equinix: Stephen Smith | 1824531 | 9688500 | 11513031 | 13% | |
| AMD: Lisa Su | 1218769 | 10529303 | 11748072 | 227% | |
| Rackspace: William Taylor Rhodes | 1102937 | 11399910 | 12502847 | n/a | |
| Symantec: Steve Bennett | 4827054 | 8272725 | 13099779 | 1% | |
| CenturyLink: Glen Post | 3550221 | 9581227 | 13131448 | 46% | |
| CSC: Mike Lawrie | 3755890 | 9511305 | 13267195 | -38% | |
| Xerox: Ursula Burns | 6705356 | 7750004 | 14455360 | 41% | |
| Texas Instruments: Rich Templeton | 5243660 | 9800034 | 15043694 | 10% | |
| Avaya: Kevin Kennedy | 8752934 | 6954000 | 15706934 | 75% | |
| Broadcom: Scott McGregor | 2868969 | 13582442 | 16451411 | 3% | |
| Cisco: John Chambers | 3611475 | 12876709 | 16488184 | -22% | |
| Intuit: Brad Smith | 2900000 | 13648469 | 16548469 | 33% | |
| Adobe: Shantanu Narayen | 2464473 | 15426445 | 17890918 | 14% | |
| Nuance: Paul Ricci | 1527521 | 16412235 | 17939756 | -39% | |
| Verizon: Lowell McAdam | 6306457 | 12000052 | 18306509 | 16% | |
| IBM: Virginia Rometty | 6884716 | 12460409 | 19345125 | 39% | |
| HP: Meg Whitman | 6109452 | 13502712 | 19612164 | 11% | |
| AT&T: Randall Stephenson | 9735422 | 14248893 | 23984315 | 3% | |
| Salesforce.com: Marc Benioff | 3670688 | 27662644 | 31333332 | 42% | |
| Comcast: Brian Roberts | 22356431 | 10604625 | 32961056 | 5% | |
| Qualcomm: Steve Mollenkopf | 2740389 | 58000203 | 60740592 | n/a | |
| Oracle: Larry Ellison | 2281651 | 64979600 | 67261251 | -16% | |
| Microsoft: Satya Nadella | 4531646 | 79777109 | 84308755 | n/a | |
| BlackBerry John Chen | 980220 | 84773000 | 85753220 | n/a | |
| Yahoo: Marissa Mayer | 2136865 | 39946643 | 42083508 | 69% | |
| Unisys: Edward Coleman | 5191161 | 4929711 | 10120872 | 171% | |
| NCR: Bill Nuti | 4284898 | 4999999 | 9284897 | -17& | |
| SanDisk: Sanjay Mehrotra | 3088100 | 8410863 | 11498963 | 8% |
