According to Variety, ex-PlayStation president and current Sony CEO Kaz Hirai received a salary of $4.9 million for the fiscal year which ended 31st March – more than double his compensation from the previous year. It's the most the company has paid to a CEO since the firm was forced to reveal the wages of its top executives in 2010.
The reason for the raise is because Hirai has successfully steered Sony back to profitability after a long period of restructuring. To be fair to the businessman, he's done an outstanding job; the Japanese giant is no longer the electronics juggernaut that it once was, but it's leaner and much more focused these days, which is down to Kaz.
He wasn't the only high paid executive on the firm's books, with CFO Kenichiro Yoshida and Executive Deputy President Tomoyuki Suzuki also receiving more than $960,000 apiece. While the numbers are astronomical, these are smart people, and they've moved mountains to get Sony back on track. Incredible for a man who's best known for his love of Ridge Racer.
[source variety.com]
Comments 23
Lmao that tweet
So someone at Sony gets the vita memory card issue. I hope whoever tied their company to this terrible deal got restructured out
Love the tweet! hehe
The tweet is so bad it's good!
Didn't Sony executives take a 50% pay cut and give up their bonuses during the restructuring of the past few years? Seems like this bonus is due now that they're profitable.
I lol at that tweet
I could never hear about an Execs salary without feeling some kinda cheated. That said, I am aware of the tough decisions that they have to make and the high caliber business strategies they have to implement.
@JoeBlogs @wittypixel Some earn it, some don't. Having followed Sony's financials for a few years, Kaz genuinely has done a good job. Does he deserve $5 million? I don't know, it's a difficult discussion. That is an outrageous amount of money, but at least his company's contributing to the global economy in a generally positive manner.
In Kaz we trust. Give us our crazy upgraded PS4 and DS4
Too much, but it's the way the world works. We at the bottom ain't gonna change it, unless by some miracle we vote in a party that will actually change things, rather than just keep everything pretty much the same as it's always been. (BTW, I'm certainly not implying UKIP are the party to change things. Anyone who thinks that is seriously deluded!)
As noted though, at least he's being rewarded for success, rather than driving a company into the ground, ruining countless people's livelihoods and pensions, and still receiving millions of pounds to boot.
That tweet!(I wish vita memory was cheaper!)
That tweet is without a doubt the funniest thing I have ever seen from a companies executive even if I'm not in the habit of following executives on Twitter. Considering the enormous bonuses company execs tend to give themselves consistently this is actually a pretty small bonus here in the us at least. I constantly read of someone getting a 10-25 million dollar bonus. There is actually a story that came out a few days ago regarding the director of a non profit, focused on giving out scholarships to the underprivileged getting a bonus of around 1 million dollars or something along those lines while the non profit gave out under 700k in scholarships for the year. That story to read was just disgusting, I believe he reportedly spent an hour a week on average actually doing work for the non profit, and had multiple family members working there with the secretary taking home something like 80k a year. Again, at a non profit that had a value of 25 mil and only gave out under 700k in scholarships for the year.
When you look at something like that and then see someone who played a massive role in turning around a sinking ship I believe kaz absolutely deserved what he gets. Plus if the company was still in the red I am sure he would do what they did the past few years and forego there bonuses. Something like that would never be done here in the us or at least I have never heard of it that I can remember.
Man's done good. All those people working at Sony:- the execs, the engineers, the boffins, the creative's, the office junior, tea lady and all the external sources(retailers, reviewers, postmen) etc are all part of a huge salary ecosystem. He deserves a good pay rise cos whilst Sony is doing well, those other hard workers are having a peaceful nights sleep too. I could never do what Kaz or Phil Spencer do. Nice one gents!
CEO Kaz Hiari's twitter account is always worth a laugh, after the E3 conference he tweeted that the orchestra will now be playing the funeral march for the Vita. It's what parody accounts should be.
Thought that was a parody Twitter account. I cant see an exec taking the mic out of themselves so regularly, and also taking shots at anything else that isn't themselves.
But hey, good on him. Probably swimming in a pool of notes with that wide open smile and choking on it. He did turn Sony around, despite partly being responsible for putting them there in the first place.
Kaz definitely earned it. Hilariously inappropriate tweet.
When the 3DS caused Nintendo's first losses in 30 years, Iwata gave himself a 50% pay cut, whilst Miyamoto and various other execs had their salaries slashed by 40%.
Says a lot about the leadership differences between both companies.
GOOD pay him MORE What a GOD + I can't work out if that TWITter guy is pro SONY or hates SONY. Bring back SirKenKutaragi off of n4g.com who was a real PS Fan(Hmm, I wonder what happened to him)
Well if it's give and take then it's fair. In the Netherlands the guy ruins a company and still gets a big check after firing a lot of people.....
Surely nobody should earn that type off money while people anywhere in the world are homeless. I can only assume he give 90% away to charity.
Doesn't Wayne Rooney earn that just for turning up to work? Crazy world.
Why can't they just drop the price of the memory card T_T they have practically written off the console already!
It's not all that much considerig what he's doing.
That's basically 100x my annual salary. I think running a multi-billion dollar global corporation, and maintaining their PLAYSTATION brand as the market leader (in home consoles, anyways) is definitely 100x the accomplishment of what I do. Not to say being a metrologist/engineer is easily dismissed but, just saying. I could duplicate myself 100 times and still not do his job.
He deserves every penny.
*Also that tweet is so funny, but it stings because even with the president taking jabs, they still won't lower the price. And I think even he knows that.
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