New Delhi: The bonuses of the top bosses at the top 10 IT firms surged massively during the Covid-19 pandemic, a new report has said. Between 2020 and 2021, the bonuses of the chief executives (CEOs) of these 10 tech companies zoomed 400 per cent on average, news agency IANS reported, quoting data acquired by financial news portal Finbold.
Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, however, saw a 14 per cent drop in his bonuses in 2020 and 2021.
The report said Tan Hock Eng from Broadcom was the highest gainer as his compensation grew by 1,586 per cent — from $3.6 million to $60.7 million. Safra Ada Catz from Oracle was second, with a growth of 999 per cent.
“With the tech sector registering significant returns amid the coronavirus pandemic, the industry's executives are also ranking high in compensation,” said the report.
Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO, ranked third with 713.64 per cent gains, from $22 million to $179 million, while Apple’s Tim Cook was next, recording a bonus surge of 571.63 per cent — from $14.7 million to $98.7 million.
Andy Jassy of Amazon finished fifth with 491.9 per cent gains, from $35.8 million to $211.9 million.
Among the others who earned significant perks during the period include Nvidia’s Jensen Huang (52.17 per cent), Cisco's Chuck Robbins (9.48 per cent), and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg (5.93 per cent).
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, meanwhile, recorded a 19.68 per cent drop in his compensation, from $43.2 million to $34.7 million.
All combined, the compensation of the selected executives for 2021 was $721.13 million, which shows a 210.88 per cent growth from the 2020 figure of $231.96 million.
"Although the increase in bonuses might be a direct impact of the tech sector's performance in the last two years, the standard justification for allocating high perks is to retain talent amid the pandemic," said the Finbold report.
It said some executives are known to create corporate value, and their organisation compensated them with whatever it took.