10 Highest-Paid Employees In The World And Their Earnings

These days, every other person has a start-up running in their mind. They all have great ideas just waiting to be executed, after all, start-ups are the way to create your empire. But these tech giants of the corporate jungle are employees and earn millions of dollars in salary.

Start-ups are great initiatives but are also greatly unstable. Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur and surviving the market in the initial years is the key to becoming a successful business but many start-ups fail here due to various reasons, the main reason being financial instability.

Here we have a list of employees of tech-giant firms with millions of dollars in salary:

1. Tim Cook ($265 Million)

Bloomberg’s yearly Pay Index reported that in 2020, Cook received a massive compensation package amounting to approximately $265 million. The data provided by Bloomberg shows that Cook’s compensation is composed of $10.7 million in bonuses, $3 million in salary, roughly $1 million in perks, and an enormous $250.3 million in stock awards. The total amount in INR is around 1,970 Crore Rupees.

2. Chad Richison ($220 Million)

Chad Richison, the CEO of Paycom, received a total compensation of $220 million in 2020, which was mainly in the form of $218 million in stock awards, with $736,529 in perks. The company offers cloud-based HR management software to about 31,000 employers.

3. Joey Levin ($184 Million)

Joey Levin, the CEO of InterActiveCorp (IAC), was the fifth-highest-paid executive in 2020 with a total compensation of $184 million or around 1,360 crore rupees.

It’s also worth noting that CEO compensation has been rising in recent years. In 1965, the average CEO salary was only 20 times higher than the average worker’s salary.

4. Patrick P. Gelsinger ($178.6 Million)

In 2020, former CEO Bob Swan earned 217 times more than the average Intel employee, whereas Pat Gelsinger, the current CEO, earned $178.6 million in 2021. This amount includes stock awards that made up nearly 79% of his total compensation, which is about 698% higher than Swan’s 2020 pay.

5. Satya Nadella ($49.9 million)

According to Microsoft’s proxy statement, the company’s CEO Satya Nadella saw a 12% increase in his total compensation, bringing it to $49.9 million for fiscal year 2021 which ended on June 30. Although Nadella’s base salary remained at $2.5 million, the board of Microsoft raised his annual compensation to nearly $50M.

6. Shantanu Narayen ($39 million)

Since December 2007, Shantanu Narayen has been the chairman, president, and CEO of Adobe Inc. He joined the company in 2005 as its president and COO. According to USA Today, he received $39.1 million in compensation in 2019, equivalent to around 290 crore rupees annually.

7. Dara Khosrowshahi ($12.3 Million)

Dara Khosrowshahi serves as the CEO of Uber. In 2020, his total compensation amounted to approximately $12.3 million. This includes a base salary of $337,000, cash bonuses of around $1.6 million, stocks worth $9.5 million, and other compensation totaling $850,000. In Indian rupees, this amounts to roughly 91 crores.

He made more than $42 Million in 2019, including stock bonuses. CEO pay rose significantly in 2020, with several executives earning over $100 million.

Uber’s CEO waived part of his $1 million salary during pandemic layoffs, according to Business Insider.

8. Sundar Pichai ($7.4 Million)

In 2020, his base salary was $2 million, and he earned an additional $5 million in “All Other Compensation,” bringing his total compensation to $7.4 million, which is equivalent to approximately 52 crore rupees.

Sundar Pichai holds the position of CEO at Google and its parent company Alphabet Inc. and serves on Alphabet’s Board of Directors. Five years ago, he became the highest-paid CEO in the United States, thanks to a grant of stocks worth $199 million.

Did you know that under his leadership, Google has been focused on creating products and services that are backed by the most recent developments in AI, and assist in both large and small situations?

9. Linda Yaccarino ($6 Million)

Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of Twitter, receives an annual fixed salary of $6 million along with a bonus pay of $2 million. Furthermore, she is entitled to receive $4 million worth of stock options upon completing her 3-year term as the CEO of Twitter.

Start-ups are the way to go if you want to build from scratch and you are willing to go through the initial uncertain years of financial stability. But if the pay is this high, being an employee is not so bad either.