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[ManaByte]

Nintendo CEO once halved his salary to prevent layoffs, and it worked—why that's so uncommon today

Nintendo's CEO once took a 50% pay cut to avoid layoffs. Here's why it worked for the video game company, says expert — and why it's not always a perfect fix.

www.cnbc.com

To avoid layoffs, Iwata took a 50% pay cut to help pay for employee salaries, saying a fully-staffed Nintendo would have a better chance of rebounding.

“If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease, and I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world,” Iwata reportedly said at the time.

For Iwata, taking a pay cut over layoffs centered around his employees’ ability to bounce back, Verma says. Slashing his own salary allowed existing talent to keep working on upcoming projects — which were intended to turn Nintendo’s financial fortunes around — in a stress-free, high-morale environment.

Now you understand why Iwata is revered to this day at Nintendo, even crediting him in the Super Mario Movie.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

US CEOs:

 

[Robb]

Iwata is and always will be an absolute legend. Both as Nintendo’s CEO and as a game developer/programmer.

 

[Astray]

Nintendo CEO once halved his salary to prevent layoffs, and it worked—why that's so uncommon today

Nintendo's CEO once took a 50% pay cut to avoid layoffs. Here's why it worked for the video game company, says expert — and why it's not always a perfect fix.

www.cnbc.com

Now you understand why Iwata is revered to this day at Nintendo, even crediting him in the Super Mario Movie.

He literally laid off 320 people in Europe after saying this. All execs are liars.

Nintendo lays off 320 workers in Europe, despite speaking against the practice last year

320 individuals, including 130 full-time Nintendo of Europe employees and 190 who worked for the localization department through a leasing agency, will be laid off effective August 31. "As...

www.polygon.com

 

[ManaByte]

He literally laid off 320 people in Europe after saying this. All execs are liars.

Nintendo lays off 320 workers in Europe, despite speaking against the practice last year

320 individuals, including 130 full-time Nintendo of Europe employees and 190 who worked for the localization department through a leasing agency, will be laid off effective August 31. "As...

www.polygon.com

Nintendo of Europe and temps working through a temp agency aren't the ones making the games, designing the Switch, and working on the movie.

 

[lh032]

Jim Ryan:

 

[Mr Moose]

We knew this years ago.

Iwata announces pay reduction for the entire Nintendo board from Feb to June

Just came through on the wire, expect public stories soon. Pretty nuts. --- Mod Abuse: Here are the specifics: The entire board is taking pay reductions from the period of Feb until June. Iwata is taking a 50% reduction as the company president. The two other representative directors, Genyo...

www.neogaf.com

 

[Mister Wolf]

I'm sure Bobby would have done the same.

 

[ADiTAR]

Iwata and Nintendo are on another level.

 

[Lupin3]

Bobby right now:

 

[Mr Moose]

I'm sure Bobby would have done the same.

Bobby:

 

[Robb]

He literally laid off 320 people in Europe after saying this. All execs are liars.

Nintendo lays off 320 workers in Europe, despite speaking against the practice last year

320 individuals, including 130 full-time Nintendo of Europe employees and 190 who worked for the localization department through a leasing agency, will be laid off effective August 31. "As...

www.polygon.com

 

[Silver Wattle]

Yeah, I read it on here years ago when it happened, it didn't save enough money to do what is claimed, it was just done to stop shareholder outrage when they were in a revenue downturn.

 

[ProtoByte]

Hasn't this been deboonked already? Because iirc, it was Japanese labor law that stopped Nintendo from sweeping layoffs, and Iwata halved his salary as a show of good faith and solidarity. Someone freely correct me if I'm wrong there.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Iwata is the only gaming CEO who was actually an accomplished game dev first.

 

[Jeff Spicoli]

Satoru Iwata will be missed for generations.

 

[KungFucius]

He literally laid off 320 people in Europe after saying this. All execs are liars.

Nintendo lays off 320 workers in Europe, despite speaking against the practice last year

320 individuals, including 130 full-time Nintendo of Europe employees and 190 who worked for the localization department through a leasing agency, will be laid off effective August 31. "As...

www.polygon.com

Pure whataboutism. Clearly he was talking about devs and the core team and about preventing some layoffs not all. While a CEO tends to make 100s more than the average, cutting their pay can only directly fund 100s of people's salaries. But you can point to a bit of data that contradicts this statement only when you add meaning to it that was never there so I guess you win the "I don't understand the issue but I can google something to say that it is bullshit award" for this thread.

 

[winjer]

Nintendo CEO once halved his salary to prevent layoffs, and it worked—why that's so uncommon today

Nintendo's CEO once took a 50% pay cut to avoid layoffs. Here's why it worked for the video game company, says expert — and why it's not always a perfect fix.

www.cnbc.com

Now you understand why Iwata is revered to this day at Nintendo, even crediting him in the Super Mario Movie.

This is what a true leader does.
Too bad most CEOs only care about themselves and their bonus.

 

[nush]

Sega Does what Nintendon't

Sega's president donated all ~$695 million of his own company stock to save Sega from going bankrupt due to the Dreamcast​

CNN.com - Late Sega exec leaves legacy, new leadership - March 19, 2001

 

[Astray]

Pure whataboutism. Clearly he was talking about devs and the core team and about preventing some layoffs not all. While a CEO tends to make 100s more than the average, cutting their pay can only directly fund 100s of people's salaries. But you can point to a bit of data that contradicts this statement only when you add meaning to it that was never there so I guess you win the "I don't understand the issue but I can google something to say that it is bullshit award" for this thread.

Whataboutism?

Literally what he talked about happened through his own doing less than a year after he said what he said.

Also CEOs cutting their pay is nonsense meant to placate the masses, the vast majority of their money comes from their stock options, which they can borrow against sell etc etc etc.

 

[crackajack]

Layoffs should require executives to take a salary cut by law and if records are hit in following years the company should need to pay bonuses to the actual workers and not the suits who just fired a bunch of people and actually did nothing to improve the productivity, since the fewer, remaining people did.

 

[calistan]

US CEOs:

Tesla shareholders had to take Elon Musk to court to prevent him taking a $56 billion pay package.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...lon-musk-s-56-billion-pay-package/ar-BB1idCms

 

[daclynk]

thats why Iwata will always remain a legend in the industry

 

[MagnesD3]

Miyamoto should have one of these with a faded out tiny DKC box in the corner too.

 

[artsi]

Nice story but how much was his salary and how many jobs did it save?

I really doubt any gaming CEO earns so much that 50% of his salary would save hundreds of jobs if mass layoffs were necessary.

 

[Krappadizzle]

Man, I miss Iwata. Dude had infinite charm and those Nintendo Directs have never been the same since he died. He was a shining beacon of how to act in the face of many adversities.

 

[SmokedMeat]

You’d never see a Western company do what’s best for anyone but themselves.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

Nice to hear about a CEO doing something positive.

I really doubt any gaming CEO earns so much that 50% of his salary would save hundreds of jobs if mass layoffs were necessary.

CEO pay is ridiculous though, I know you've put the caveat that you're talking about gaming CEOs, but it's worth sharing (IMO) that in 2021 CEOs were paid 399 times as much as an average worker. In that instance, they could halve their pay and save 200 jobs. I assume that given that CEO pay has been on an upward trajectory for a while, it might be even more average jobs that could be saved.

CEO pay has skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978: CEOs were paid 399 times as much as a typical worker in 2021

What this report finds: Corporate boards running America’s largest public firms are giving top executives outsize compensation packages that have grown much faster than the stock market and the pay of typical workers, college graduates, and even the top 0.1%. In 2021, we project that a CEO at...

www.epi.org

 

[diffusionx]

There are two issues with this conceit, one is that you can't save that many jobs and two is that it doesn't necessarily fix the problems with the company that lead to the need for layoffs. Like, if you look at Google, they're laying off 12,000 people, you can pay Sundar Pichai $5 and you're not going to save those jobs, many of which are dead weight anyway. Now, that said, Sundar Pichai sucks so the right move is to get rid of him and replace him, but you're gonna have to pay the next guy.

I think Iwata's move was unique to Japan and unique to Nintendo. For one thing, Japanese CEOs are not as paid highly as in Europe and USA and the culture is different. Two, there was nothing fundamentally wrong with Nintendo's business. They were still making great games and still knew how to sell their products. They just released a bad console that the market didn't like. There was no need to lay off teams of people doing great work and contributing. The team that made the Wii U screwed up but they still needed a hardware team. They just needed to release a better product which they had in the works. Iwata basically bought some time with the move which is what they needed.

 

[ozz ex machina]

US CEOs:

Ah yes - Japanese business is well known for generating healthy, happy working cultures. lol.

I'm from Europe and my understand is America has really rough work conditions, but Japan is even more brutal.

 

[FingerBang]

You have to be retarded to think that amount of money keeps a company afloat. Absolutely a great gesture, especially if you're not paying bonuses in Japan (which are technically part of your salary but companies can decide not to pay if finances are bad) and can't raise employee's salary. I can believe it had an effect on morale and might have pleased shareholders, but let's not pretend that saved people's jobs.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

There really is a shitstorm coming, isn't there?

This basically reads like after #SonyToo, we now see #NintendoToo.

 

[calistan]

You have to be retarded to think that amount of money keeps a company afloat. Absolutely a great gesture, especially if you're not paying bonuses in Japan (which are technically part of your salary but companies can decide not to pay if finances are bad) and can't raise employee's salary. I can believe it had an effect on morale and might have pleased shareholders, but let's not pretend that saved people's jobs.

It's definitely a morale issue. CEOs are more than adequately compensated off the payroll, it's just that the salary is the thing that makes the headlines and makes the ordinary worker resentful.

Steve Jobs was the lowest salaried employee at Apple, on just $1 per year, and yet he could afford to have this yacht built .

https://www.boatinternational.com/yachts/editorial-features/iconic-yachts-venus

 

[German Hops]

Based Iwata.

 

[SidViscous]

Even when he became CEO he never stopped being a developer, still breaks my heart his final public message was apologising for the WiiU E3 showing, and he never got to see his vision for the switch become a huge success.

 

[Alexios]

Nintendo is famous for extreme employee retention rate before and after this, it shows how it was ingrained to the company by people like Iwata, which little shitty trolls that nobody will remember and their close circle will probably celebrate when they die like Astray try to smear after their death and inability to defend themselves. Obviously the money saved didn't save the jobs, he saved the jobs by showing this is how he takes real responsibility for the issues to shareholders and the world while maintaining the company's integrity and structure and leading it to the good times ahead

 

[nush]

Even when he became SEO

Search engine optimization?

 

[Skelterz]

Satoru Iwata, Bless the man. The Nintendo switch was his final swan song unfortunately he didn’t make it long enough to see the fruits of his labour. I do believe the recent up swing in Nintendo’s output around that time was a desire to make right by the failure of the Wii u and to honor Iwata’s passing.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

He literally laid off 320 people in Europe after saying this. All execs are liars.

Nintendo lays off 320 workers in Europe, despite speaking against the practice last year

320 individuals, including 130 full-time Nintendo of Europe employees and 190 who worked for the localization department through a leasing agency, will be laid off effective August 31. "As...

www.polygon.com

No one can hide the truth on social networks anymore.

 

[AJUMP23]

He is a legend. He also wrote code on Pokémon or something that allowed them to double the size of the game because of his memory usage tricks.

 

[Shut0wen]

What he did was legendary but most ceos of companys and development studios dont even earn a large enough bonus to cover staff costs, like no bonuses could cover 1900 people being laid off at activision

 

[Deerock71]

Iwata da GOAT.

 

[Harlock]

Nintendo dont do the same level of layoff because did not hire any the same amount unecessary people like western companies do.

 

[cash_longfellow]

Shows how disgustingly overpaid CEOs are. If half of their salary can save a bunch of lower level jobs, they make too much.

 

[Spukc]

US CEOs:

would do the same..
fuck em grab that bag of money and gtfo
devs are lazy for a reason

 

[tkscz]

He literally laid off 320 people in Europe after saying this. All execs are liars.

Nintendo lays off 320 workers in Europe, despite speaking against the practice last year

320 individuals, including 130 full-time Nintendo of Europe employees and 190 who worked for the localization department through a leasing agency, will be laid off effective August 31. "As...

www.polygon.com

Nintendo of Europe has a separate CEO than Nintendo of Japan, Iwata didn't make that decision, Satoru Shibata did.

59% of those employees were contractors for translation. None of these employees worked on games.

 

[SHA]

Nintendo CEO once halved his salary to prevent layoffs, and it worked—why that's so uncommon today

Nintendo's CEO once took a 50% pay cut to avoid layoffs. Here's why it worked for the video game company, says expert — and why it's not always a perfect fix.

www.cnbc.com

Now you understand why Iwata is revered to this day at Nintendo, even crediting him in the Super Mario Movie.

He doesn't work for the money, he's a humble guy.

 

[Deerock71]

Shows how disgustingly overpaid CEOs are. If half of their salary can save a bunch of lower level jobs, they make too much.

COMMIE!

 

[mckmas8808]

Iwata is and always will be an absolute legend. Both as Nintendo’s CEO and as a game developer/programmer.

They got it right! And haven't been infected by Westernized late-stage capitalism yet. Great for them!

 

[alucard0712_rus]

He literally laid off 320 people in Europe after saying this. All execs are liars.

Nintendo lays off 320 workers in Europe, despite speaking against the practice last year

320 individuals, including 130 full-time Nintendo of Europe employees and 190 who worked for the localization department through a leasing agency, will be laid off effective August 31. "As...

www.polygon.com

Nintendo Europe? What is that? PR department?
Also PR in Switch era was different and waaaaay better than any PR before. WiiU is struggling because of everything PR so it's all for better and Switch proved it.