Words: India Gladstone
LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Weiner has just forgone his $14 million stock bonus by giving it back to his employees. The reason? LinkedIn’s stock value took a beating following its earnings report in February and Weiner now wants to boost the morale of his staff and keep them within the company. The stock, which had previously been trading at around $192, fell more than 40% to $108 – but has since increased to $119.
It became obvious that Weiner had divided his cash up after LinkedIn failed to file a compensation form to the US Securities and Exchange Commission for Weiner and his massive stock bonus. A representative from LinkedIn later confirmed that Weiner had indeed put his annual equity grant back into the employee equity pool, and that this was the first time he had done it.
Since the stock crash, it’s believed that Weiner has been trying to keep all of his employees satisfied, for them to keep believing in LinkedIn’s mission and to have faith that the stock market will continue to value the social network. Weiner firmly believes that the company has remained the same both before and after the crash, and that the valuation will eventually catch up. He told his employees:
“We are the same company we were the day before our earnings announcement. I’m the same CEO I was the day before our earnings announcement. You’re the same team you were the day before our earnings announcement. And most importantly, we have the same mission, vision, and sense of purpose in terms of our ability to create economic opportunity. None of that has changed. It hasn’t changed one iota.”
And Weiner isn’t the only tech CEO to make a move like this – Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, gave away 1% of the company following a round of staff layoffs last year.
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