GTA 6 publisher Take-Two reportedly shutting Roll7 and Intercept Games

People who assume that if CEOs were paid less, then the workers could be paid more, have a rather simplistic and naive understanding of how business and the economy works.

And yet, going by history it seems to work out in practice. Look at places and times where the CEOs are paid less, and you find workers who are more prosperous and have better working conditions.

Perhaps, but there's no hard and fast rule that says better paid employees are necessarily more profitable employees. If raises were guaranteed to increase profits, then every company would do it, but it's rarely as simple as that, and the harsh reality is that sometimes layoffs are necessary to keep a business solvent.

It's worth noting at this point that Take-Two's CEO, Strauss Zelnick, was paid $42.1 million last year, which is more than two-and-a-half times the previous year. So once again, the people at the top are pulling in big numbers while cutting the people doing the work.

This needs to be pointed out more often. No one deserves this high a salary, especially at the expense of those that earn much less. Plain greed.

What's the correct number for them to make ? How do you arrive at that number ? Who gets to decide ? I'm not trying to defend Take Two but at the same time trying to dictate how much people are allowed to make is a recipe for a different form of tyranny.

Well, in the end that would be the commoners (i.e., the working class) - much to the terror of the elite classes. Does the French Revolution or Russia's February Revolution ring a bell?

As to your other thoughts, I defer to the answers from others.

It's worth noting at this point that Take-Two's CEO, Strauss Zelnick, was paid $42.1 million last year, which is more than two-and-a-half times the previous year. So once again, the people at the top are pulling in big numbers while cutting the people doing the work.

This needs to be pointed out more often. No one deserves this high a salary, especially at the expense of those that earn much less. Plain greed.

What's the correct number for them to make ? How do you arrive at that number ? Who gets to decide ? I'm not trying to defend Take Two but at the same time trying to dictate how much people are allowed to make is a recipe for a different form of tyranny.

Well, in the end that would be the commoners (i.e., the working class) - much to the terror of the elite classes. Does the French Revolution or Russia's February Revolution ring a bell?

As to your other thoughts, I defer to the answers from others.

I am part of the working class. I work six day weeks, 48 hours a week, to just get by. That means I get to decide ? So I could say that there should be no ceiling for earnings and torpedo your whole plan ? Can I also decide how much you get to earn ? You may not like my thoughts on that number right now.

You failed to answer me how much this man should earn or how you arrived at the number. There is no right number and that's why. The whole argument is just to hate the "rich". You say that this is for the terror of the elites but it should terrify anyone at allowing anybody to make law how much another person can earn. It would never end at the "elites" and would end up affecting the very people you claim to want to help anyway.

and the harsh reality is that sometimes layoffs are necessary to keep a business solvent.

But it doesn't look good when the CEO (or his Board) gives himself a $20 million raise/bonus at the same time. Instead, it looks like the CEO is terminating employees simply to justify padding his own pockets. This leads one to question his ethics.

It's worth noting at this point that Take-Two's CEO, Strauss Zelnick, was paid $42.1 million last year, which is more than two-and-a-half times the previous year. So once again, the people at the top are pulling in big numbers while cutting the people doing the work.

This needs to be pointed out more often. No one deserves this high a salary, especially at the expense of those that earn much less. Plain greed.

What's the correct number for them to make ? How do you arrive at that number ? Who gets to decide ? I'm not trying to defend Take Two but at the same time trying to dictate how much people are allowed to make is a recipe for a different form of tyranny.

Well, in the end that would be the commoners (i.e., the working class) - much to the terror of the elite classes. Does the French Revolution or Russia's February Revolution ring a bell?

As to your other thoughts, I defer to the answers from others.

I am part of the working class. I work six day weeks, 48 hours a week, to just get by. That means I get to decide ? So I could say that there should be no ceiling for earnings and torpedo your whole plan ? Can I also decide how much you get to earn ? You may not like my thoughts on that number right now.

You failed to answer me how much this man should earn or how you arrived at the number. There is no right number and that's why. The whole argument is just to hate the "rich". You say that this is for the terror of the elites but it should terrify anyone at allowing anybody to make law how much another person can earn. It would never end at the "elites" and would end up affecting the very people you claim to want to help anyway.

So am I. I've already capped my own earnings, thanks.

I've made no claims of wanting to help anyone. At what point did I suggest anything about a law? This is a matter of ethics not legality. Is there a "right" number? I have no idea. But compensation at the level of $42 million is just pure greed. No CEO contributes enough to a company to deserve that, period. Before the eighties, this was understood. Now everything is just pure greed.

Oh, and yes, as a member of the common folk, you do get to decide. Collectively or individually. You've just presumably chosen not to exercise that option and decided to live within the system provided to you by the elite.

allowing anybody to make law how much another person can earn.

FYI, most Western governments already do this. Are you not familiar with minimum wage legislation?


Last edited by Caldathras on 3 May 2024 at 9:40 pm UTC

You failed to answer me how much this man should earn or how you arrived at the number. There is no right number and that's why. The whole argument is just to hate the "rich". You say that this is for the terror of the elites but it should terrify anyone at allowing anybody to make law how much another person can earn. It would never end at the "elites" and would end up affecting the very people you claim to want to help anyway.

There is absolutely no good reason why we can NOT regulate excessive salaries. Free markets never produce 100% desirable results in all situations. Even free-market advocates don't deny that. Which is why in economics, it's considered to be just fine to correct market failures with regulation and/or taxation. And as I pointed out above, it's borderline insane to claim that these CEO salaries are somehow NOT a market failure.

As for who, how and when to regulate? That's the parliaments job, don't you think? They do that all the time, and the numbers aren't always hard science. Like the numbers they set tax exemptions and grants to this exact amount, despite it also could have been 1000 dollars more or less.

Whenever this topic is discussed, people go "Regulation? Dictatorship!!!!". It's so funny, because similar to CEOs, thieves also grab stuff and run away with it, because they can. And yet we made regulations against it...

and the harsh reality is that sometimes layoffs are necessary to keep a business solvent.

But it doesn't look good when the CEO (or his Board) gives himself a $20 million raise/bonus at the same time. Instead, it looks like the CEO is terminating employees simply to justify padding his own pockets. This leads one to question his ethics.

I don't suppose there are many CEOs who care how some people might interpret it.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

People who assume that if CEOs were paid less, then the workers could be paid more, have a rather simplistic and naive understanding of how business and the economy works.

And yet, going by history it seems to work out in practice. Look at places and times where the CEOs are paid less, and you find workers who are more prosperous and have better working conditions.

Perhaps, but there's no hard and fast rule that says better paid employees are necessarily more profitable employees. If raises were guaranteed to increase profits, then every company would do it, but it's rarely as simple as that, and the harsh reality is that sometimes layoffs are necessary to keep a business solvent.

I think I'd want to claim that when times are tough enough that layoffs are necessary to keep the business solvent, the CEO should not be increasing his pay by more than the money the layoffs save. Really, how hard is this?

And that's before you even get to the part where the people laid off were not just costing wages, they were presumably making the business money, whereas a raise to the same CEO, as a reward for business failure so far, is unlikely to cause more money to exist in any way. So if you lay people off, you may have a net gain if it was a money-losing area, but it will be smaller than the money saved on salary unless the idea of hiring them in the first place was an example of lunatic incompetence in the first place. So the CEO raise, which is pure loss, isn't just several times as large as the savings, it overwhelms them to a ridiculous degree.

But I guess it's justified because the CEO, from his yacht, makes the tough decisions and takes risks--what if his decisions led to the company going under and he had to make do for a while on just those 26 million smackers? Oh, the humanity!--while ordinary employees laid off face no risks at all . . .


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 3 May 2024 at 10:12 pm UTC

People who assume that if CEOs were paid less, then the workers could be paid more, have a rather simplistic and naive understanding of how business and the economy works.

And yet, going by history it seems to work out in practice. Look at places and times where the CEOs are paid less, and you find workers who are more prosperous and have better working conditions.

Perhaps, but there's no hard and fast rule that says better paid employees are necessarily more profitable employees. If raises were guaranteed to increase profits, then every company would do it, but it's rarely as simple as that, and the harsh reality is that sometimes layoffs are necessary to keep a business solvent.

I think I'd want to claim that when times are tough enough that layoffs are necessary to keep the business solvent, the CEO should not be increasing his pay by more than the money the layoffs save. Really, how hard is this?

And that's before you even get to the part where the people laid off were not just costing wages, they were presumably making the business money, whereas a raise to the same CEO, as a reward for business failure so far, is unlikely to cause more money to exist in any way. So if you lay people off, you may have a net gain if it was a money-losing area, but it will be smaller than the money saved on salary unless the idea of hiring them in the first place was an example of lunatic incompetence in the first place. So the CEO raise, which is pure loss, isn't just several times as large as the savings, it overwhelms them to a ridiculous degree.

But I guess it's justified because the CEO, from his yacht, makes the tough decisions and takes risks--what if his decisions led to the company going under and he had to make do for a while on just those 26 million smackers? Oh, the humanity!--while ordinary employees laid off face no risks at all . . .

Look, you can vilify the CEO all you want and pretend that running a multi-million dollar company is done from a yacht while casually sipping martinis instead of being hard work that requires decades of business experience, but the fact is, giving himself a raise isn't what led to the employees being laid off, and if keeping the employees was likely to turn a profit for the company, then they would still have a job. I've been on the receiving end of layoffs before, and yes, it sucks to lose your source of income, but I also recognize that businesses aren't charities, they exist to make money, and if they're losing money keeping certain people on the payroll, then good business says it's time to let them go. Like I said, if increasing profits was as easy as handing out raises like candy, then everybody would be doing it.


Last edited by Mountain Man on 3 May 2024 at 11:18 pm UTC

I think I'd want to claim that when times are tough enough that layoffs are necessary to keep the business solvent, the CEO should not be increasing his pay by more than the money the layoffs save. Really, how hard is this?

The above quote is right on the money (see what I did there).

Cutting jobs that result in spending a few hundred thousand money units less, then giving yourself exponentially MORE cash does NOT help. Were the job cuts supposed to result in saving the company or reduce spending? Did he save the company money? NO, he just lined his pocket with MORE than he 'saved' the company. However;

Businesses exist to make money, not be charities (unless it actually IS a chrarity). The CEO can give himself as much of the companies' money as he can get his grubby hands on; people are in it to make money, that's fine. I do not agree there should be income limits, because, as mentioned, it is just a hop skip and a jump from a different kind of tyranny. I am partial to calling this kind of action Employment Abuse or Financial Abuse or perhaps some better terms someone else can suggest, and having a regulation from a similar department to where anti-trust or other business overwatch originates from.

There is absolutely no good reason why we can NOT regulate excessive salaries.

There is a saying that goes something like "we were so busy finding out if we COULD, that we didn't ask ourselves if we SHOULD". Excessive salaries, by itself, isn't the problem. "saving" the company money, then pocketting multitudes more than the lost jobs would ever cost the company is where many like-minded people like myself take umbrage.

Like I said, if increasing profits was as easy as handing out raises like candy, then everybody would be doing it.

Funny nobody told the CEO that. How are you managing to not see that your argument is utterly inconsistent?

Look, there's two basic kinds of bosses of a company. There's the kind that people who wish our system worked as advertised think about: People like my son-in-law, who started from nothing or not very much and built up a business from nothing and who know it inside and out. They do exist, there are even quite a few of them, although they tend to be the bosses of small companies. And then there's the kind that was born either rich or well-to-do, went to a prestigious university and got an MBA. They know how to schmooze with other rich, connected people and how to maximize stock price next quarter so they can make a bunch of money from their stock options. They know a bit about how to move money around in companies. They know nothing about the specifics of any given company or how its business actually works, because they have been taught that money and people are completely universal and exchangeable and the specifics of the business don't matter if you know how to move money. They tend to move from company to company, often in quite different kinds of businesses because they think the specifics don't matter. And when they lay people off, it is usually because although in the long run those people probably contribute to the bottom line, in the short term dumping them will goose the stock price because most of the investors are ignorant and they only see (reduction in expenses == bigger dividends next quarter, or money plowed into share buybacks). And that second kind, is the kind that give themselves $26 million-a-year raises. And they are the kind that are most influential in the economy.

Also the kind that gives you situations like Boeing, where the product goes to shit because of all those years getting stratospheric stock prices from the visionary cost-cutting. Of course by that time a few people have made a stack of money--all the layoffs and outsourcing and elimination of quality control did create that result, so in that sense it wasn't stupid. But it wasn't good for the company, or the workers, or the customers, or the people who got killed in the planes, or the murdered whistleblowers.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 4 May 2024 at 6:23 pm UTC

Like I said, if increasing profits was as easy as handing out raises like candy, then everybody would be doing it.

Funny nobody told the CEO that. How are you managing to not see that your argument is utterly inconsistent?

Look, there's two basic kinds of bosses of a company. There's the kind that people who wish our system worked as advertised think about: People like my son-in-law, who started from nothing or not very much and built up a business from nothing and who know it inside and out. They do exist, there are even quite a few of them, although they tend to be the bosses of small companies. And then there's the kind that was born either rich or well-to-do, went to a prestigious university and got an MBA. They know how to schmooze with other rich, connected people and how to maximize stock price next quarter so they can make a bunch of money from their stock options. They know a bit about how to move money around in companies. They know nothing about the specifics of any given company or how its business actually works, because they have been taught that money and people are completely universal and exchangeable and the specifics of the business don't matter if you know how to move money. They tend to move from company to company, often in quite different kinds of businesses because they think the specifics don't matter. And when they lay people off, it is usually because although in the long run those people probably contribute to the bottom line, in the short term dumping them will goose the stock price because most of the investors are ignorant and they only see (reduction in expenses == bigger dividends next quarter, or money plowed into share buybacks). And that second kind, is the kind that give themselves $26 million-a-year raises. And they are the kind that are most influential in the economy.

Also the kind that gives you situations like Boeing, where the product goes to shit because of all those years getting stratospheric stock prices from the visionary cost-cutting. Of course by that time a few people have made a stack of money--all the layoffs and outsourcing and elimination of quality control did create that result, so in that sense it wasn't stupid. But it wasn't good for the company, or the workers, or the customers, or the people who got killed in the planes, or the murdered whistleblowers.

You are generalizing to a ridiculous degree.
CEOs of large corporations are not all clueless rich kids just as small business owners are not all virtuous. Furthermore, you don't know anything about why the layoffs happened in this specific case, but that's not going to stop you from accusing the CEO of being evil. I doubt it was an arbitrary decision. Most likely he had other managers and company accountants advising him and answering questions -- How long have they been working on this game? How much money has it cost us so far? How much longer until it's ready for release, and how much more will it cost? What are the projected sales? What is the expected profit? -- and then he made the best decision for the company based on that information.

You mentioned your son is a business owner. Tell me, would he continue to pay a team of employees who are costing his company literally more than they're worth? Would he cut his own salary in order to keep them around? I suspect the answer to both questions is no.


Last edited by Mountain Man on 4 May 2024 at 8:17 pm UTC

There is a problem with the CEO making more money after cutting all those people. But guess what, it's exactly how CEO pay incentivizes them to make decisions. Say your base salary is $1M with the potential to make $2M when the company meets certain annual profit goals. Guess what you're going to do when the profit numbers don't look good.

Yes, there is a problem with the model. And yes, there are other business models that share more of the wealth, so solutions already exist to CEO caps. But why don't those other companies hold much market share? I'm guessing one of the reasons is start-up money. Investors aren't going to give money to an entertainment company for charity -- they want something back for letting a company "borrow" their money and taking the risk that the company may never be capable of paying it back. And then you get CEO's driven with a profit purpose.

You mentioned your son is a business owner. Tell me, would he continue to pay a team of employees who are costing his company literally more than they're worth? Would he cut his own salary in order to keep them around? I suspect the answer to both questions is no.

I suspect he'd get them to do something else that wouldn't cost the company more than they're worth. Probably he isn't stupid enough to hire a team of employees to do money-losing stuff in the first place. But I'm definitely sure that if he managed his company into a money-losing situation and really had to cut employees, he would tighten his belt too--he would not tell the remaining employees "Yeah, you know those guys we had to let go to save money? I took their salaries for myself, actually three times that, because screw that 'saving money' stuff."

There is a problem with the CEO making more money after cutting all those people. But guess what, it's exactly how CEO pay incentivizes them to make decisions. Say your base salary is $1M with the potential to make $2M when the company meets certain annual profit goals. Guess what you're going to do when the profit numbers don't look good.

Yes, there is a problem with the model. And yes, there are other business models that share more of the wealth, so solutions already exist to CEO caps. But why don't those other companies hold much market share?

Your explanation is possible. Or, it's possible that firms with models that promote exorbitant CEO pay and short-term-oriented management practices actually outcompete firms without. But the explanation I find the most plausible is that the people who decide on how the models for CEO pay will work . . . are mostly either CEOs, or at least wealthy people who spend much of their social time interacting with CEOs. So for instance, boards of directors for company A are often staffed with the CEOs of companies B, C and D, who in turn have the CEO of company A on their boards of directors. So, I wonder what kind of compensation model those boards of directors will choose?

You mentioned your son is a business owner. Tell me, would he continue to pay a team of employees who are costing his company literally more than they're worth? Would he cut his own salary in order to keep them around? I suspect the answer to both questions is no.

I suspect he'd get them to do something else that wouldn't cost the company more than they're worth. Probably he isn't stupid enough to hire a team of employees to do money-losing stuff in the first place. But I'm definitely sure that if he managed his company into a money-losing situation and really had to cut employees, he would tighten his belt too--he would not tell the remaining employees "Yeah, you know those guys we had to let go to save money? I took their salaries for myself, actually three times that, because screw that 'saving money' stuff."

Okay, so that's the fantasy version of running a business. In reality, it's often not possible to move unproductive employees into a more productive role, and things can change that can cause a potentially profitable department to become a financial anchor dragging down the rest of the company, and when that happens, you gotta cut people loose. That's just the way it is.

Okay, so that's the fantasy version of running a business. In reality, it's often not possible to move unproductive employees into a more productive role, and things can change that can cause a potentially profitable department to become a financial anchor dragging down the rest of the company, and when that happens, you gotta cut people loose.

And award yourself three times their salary for your genius in cutting them loose--gotta do that too, apparently. You keep evading that bit.