While much is made of Ellison's personal wealth, the Oracle chief executive comes in at just No. 24 on our list of the most highly compensated industry CEOs.
Ellison, whose net worth puts him in the same neighbourhood as Bill Gates, has holdings in Oracle worth some US$49 billion. But this only shows up as US$8.5 billion in our survey because Oracle's latest proxy statement was not out in time to be used in the calculations.
An executive with whom Ellison has sparred over the years, Charles Wang, made it to the top of the list with a total compensation of more than US$655 million in fiscal 1999 for leading Computer Associates International. Not bad for a company that Ellison likes to call a bottom-feeder for acquiring other failing software vendors. Wang scored big with US$650 million in restricted stock.
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's president and CEO, heads the stakeholders' list with his US$21.6 billion bundle of still valuable Microsoft stock. Sorry, Larry.
But nothing is constant. Wang did not do as well in fiscal 2000 -- which is not reflected in the charts.
According to the recently released proxy for fiscal 2000, the founder of CA earned only US$12.95 million in salary, incentives, and long-term compensation. He did receive stock options that could be worth US$82.3 million if CA's share price rises 10 percent annually.
Options were the big drivers in creating wealth last year. Qwest Communications International's Joseph Nacchio made it into second place with option grants valued at more than US$408 million. He wasn't even in the top 50 a year ago.
John Chambers, Cisco Systems' president, jumped 11 spaces in the rankings because he holds options that could top US$179 million.
The verdict may not be in on the future of Web advertising, but Kevin O'Connor, DoubleClick's CEO, made it into the best-paid executive ranks this year because of his US$153 million in options.
Juniper Networks became a publicly held company in June 1999, but the rapid acceptance of its gigabit routers produced US$100 million in sales by the end of the year. The company's stock has risen to more than US$181 per share. Chairman, President and CEO Scott Kriens has options that might be worth US$87 million, landing him in the top 10 in his first year of eligibility.
Exodus Communications has been the leader in the hot Web hosting segment for several years. So it is no surprise that Ellen Hancock made it to the list with US$69 million in options.
Her old boss at IBM, Louis Gerstner, dropped from second place to 38th this year, because he shows no options. Carly Fiorina jumped from Lucent Technologies to take over at Hewlett-Packard, and while she has no (financial) options to speak of, she received US$65 million in restricted stock that places her 15th.
Sprint may have eluded Bernie Ebbers this year, but WorldCom liked the performance of its president and CEO so much last year that it gave him the largest bonus of any of the top 50 executives -- US$7.5 million.
After losing its leading position as a cellular phone supplier, Motorola began a turnaround last year that helped the stock double in price. Chairman and CEO Christopher Galvin was rewarded with US$13.1 million in restricted stock, which ranked him 7th.
