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Peter Thiel: The salary of a startup CEO is “incredibly predictive”

Name: Peter Thiel: The salary of a startup CEO is “incredibly predictive”
Uploaded: 2024-03-28T11:50:11+00:00
Duration: 48 s
Channel: Lorenzo
Description: Transcript excerpt of a YouTube interview (uploaded by Lorenzo, recorded Mar 28, 2024) in which Peter Thiel argues that a startup CEO's salary is highly…

28 Mar 2024 · 1 min

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Transcript excerpt of a YouTube interview (uploaded by Lorenzo, recorded Mar 28, 2024) in which Peter Thiel argues that a startup CEO's salary is highly predictive of company culture and motivation. He recommends keeping CEO pay low ("less than $150,000, even post Series A") to align incentives toward equity rather than cash, and offers an anecdote that Reid took a salary of $15,000/year (minimum to qualify for health insurance) as an example of setting the right tone.

Questions this video answers

Less than $150,000, even post Series A.

$15,000 per year.

Chapters

The one that I think is always really good is, what is the salary of the CEO as an investor? What's the right answer to that? Less than 150,000, even post series A. If you like the people, you like the business model, you like the technology, you like everything. I found that that single question is incredibly predictive because it ends up setting the culture or people doing it for equity or cash. It drives people who are being hired. The random Data point on LinkedIn, I remember when it was getting started, Reid was taking a salary of $15,000 a year. It was the minimum wage so you could get health insurance. And, you know, maybe you didn't need more money or anything, but it was sort of setting the right tone for the company. And you always want to sort of get to this question of motivation. Do people actually believe in what they're.