CEO Salaries in SaaS

<p>We&rsquo;ve seen a wide range of CEO salaries in our portfolio, from as low as $35k annually to as much as $350k. While there is no dataset explicitly outlining salary levels at early stage SaaS companies, we have salary data from tech companies at IPO. This can give a sense for what the salary should be for a successfully exiting CEO. The data below shows the salaries of 117 SaaS company CEO&rsquo;s at IPO.</p> <p><img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/1*ps22edbtvcHzYQB4vozlZg.png" style="height:821px; width:700px" /></p> <p><img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/1*ZtNxlI-FvMBLLt0jyi3-9g.png" style="height:820px; width:700px" /></p> <p><img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/1*Jm0LsNVtGfNWY3B-9NZqyg.png" style="height:524px; width:700px" /></p> <p>A few observations stand out:</p> <p><strong>Some of the best CEO&rsquo;s take the lowest salaries.</strong>&nbsp;Marc Benioff of Salesforce took a salary of $1 at IPO, Patrick Shiong of Nant Health and Sytse Sijbrandij of Gitlab took no salary, Dustin Moskovitz from Asana took $1, and Thomas Siebel of C3 gets paid about $6k. These individuals were independently wealthy before the IPO, but it is good to see a CEO pass up a big salary if they can and sets a tone for the entire company.</p> <p><strong>$335k is the median for a very successful company.&nbsp;</strong>Keep in mind, the median salary of $335,280 is for the CEO of a SaaS company about to go public. In other words, these companies were all tremendously successful up to the point of going public, yet the CEO&rsquo;s salary was still lower than that we&rsquo;ve seen for some venture backed large startups. Be sure to temper your salary accordingly based on the stage of your company.</p> <p><strong>Other forms of comp include options and bonuses.&nbsp;</strong>Note the median bonus was $167k and median option grant had a value of $137k. A performance bonus annually is expected, and a founder will be granted stock as the Company matures and becomes more successful.</p> <p><strong>Before the IPO, some of the founders took options worth fantastic sums.</strong>&nbsp;Drew Houston at Dropbox took options worth $109mm the year before IPO. Ryan Smith at Qualtrics took $142mm. As a CEO, so long as you&rsquo;re driving fantastic growth and value, it&rsquo;s not out of line to expect additional option grants. Good investors have no problem rewarding CEOs that are performing.</p> <p><a href="https://blossomstreetventures.medium.com/ceo-salaries-in-saas-b36ffaa6293c"><strong>Website</strong></a></p>
Tags: CEO Salaries