The following story is true:Â The names have been withheld to protect those involved from any further embarrassment.
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Executive perks are a key part of the business world. You want to attract or retain the top people at your company, you’re expected to crack open your wallet and make it rain.
“To be successful, companies need to attract and reward leaders who create value over the long term, but executive remuneration often focuses on short-term targets,” Harvard Law School’s Forum on Corporate Governance said in a 2023 study.
“It’s no surprise that executive remuneration stands out as one of the most visible and closely examined aspects of a publicly listed company’s corporate governance program,” the report noted.
A closer examination of executive perks will turn up some real whoppers.
Billionaire sees strange company behavior
You’ll find tales of $2 million birthday parties for the CEO, a corporate jet employed to take the top executive’s daughter to high school, and the head honcho having company employees clean his home and mow his lawn.
And then — answering the existential question “are there perks after death?” — one executive had the mother of all noncompete clauses, which saw him or his heirs paid $15 million to keep him from competing after he left the company — even if he died.
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Manoj Bhargava has seen his share of wacky corporate behavior.Â
The billionaire philanthropist and corporate executive, who founded 5-hour Energy drinks, described one particularly nutty tale in his podcast The Business of Everything With Manoj.
“There was this big insurance company,” he said. “This guy got assigned to an office and he was at a level where you got wall-to-wall carpeting; he got brand new everything. Then they moved him to another office. So, then a new guy got his office.”
No big deal, right? Just a little bit of executive shuffling to make sure everybody’s in the right place. But there was a slight problem.
It seems that the incoming executive was not at the proper level and thus did not rate an office with wall-to-wall carpeting. What’s a company to do?Â
We’ll let Bhargava tell you.
“They cut a foot all the way around the carpet because he doesn’t qualify for wall-to-wall carpeting,” he said.Â
“The number of silly things that happen in these companies is astounding.”
No argument there. And while the Harvard study doesn’t specifically address carpeting, the report did say that “investors are increasingly demanding that compensation be justified by superior performance.”
Bhargava, majority owner of TheStreet’s parent, The Arena Group (AREN) , also has little use for corporate titles. And some real beauties are out there.
Entrepreneur warns of title creep
One company calls the market director the Wizard of Light Bulb Moments.Â
Another organization dubs its website manager the Digital Overlord, while still another outfit calls the software developer a Code Monkey.Â
Related: Beverage billionaire has sharp words for consultants
In 2021, Elon Musk, the chainsaw-wielding Duke of DOGE, officially changed his title at Tesla (TSLA)  from CEO to Technoking.
Zach Kirkhorn, the electric vehicle company’s chief financial officer at the time, was rebooted as the Master of Coin.
The tricky title trend can be traced back to the rise of the tech sector.
“New companies, young leaders and exponential growth in that industry seem to have led to a trend away from traditional job titles,” Bruce Thibodeau, president of Arts Consulting Group in Boston, said in an interview with Monster.com.
But be advised that having a cool-sounding title may put a chill on your next career move.
“Many hiring managers review hundreds of resumes and don’t necessarily have time to figure out if a ‘visionary of resource utilization’ is the same as a ‘chief financial officer,’” Thibodeau said.
Bhargava: ‘Everyone’s title is project manager’
 Bhargava has a much simpler approach.
“Internally everybody’s title is a project manager,” he said. “You have a project and you manage it. For external purposes, we may give someone a title, like El Supremo, your majesty, I don’t care. For external purposes you have to because they want to deal with somebody important.”
Bhargava has declared someone the director of something but just for the day.
“It’s the work guys, it’s not the title,” he said. “And if you’re looking for title upgrades, go to a bank. You’re at the wrong place. You could be a teller and the next thing you know you could be assistant associate vice president.”
While the name game can be funny, Bhargava warned, title creep can also be destructive.
“Then people are chasing titles, he said. “In our company nobody cares because there’s nothing to chase.”
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