6mo ago

Starbucks' new CEO will supercommute 1,000 miles from California to Seattle

www.nbcnews.com Starbucks' new CEO will supercommute 1,000 miles from California to Seattle

Brian Niccol’s arrangement underscores the gulf in bargaining power between high-ranking executives and the average employee in terms of flexibility.

Newly appointed Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol won’t be required to relocate to the company’s headquarters in Seattle when he joins the coffee giant next month.

Instead, Starbucks says Niccol can live in his home in Newport Beach, California and commute to Starbucks’ head office 1,000 miles away on a corporate jet, according to the new CEO’s offer letter, which was made public in an SEC filing last week.

In his new role, Niccol, 50, will be paid a base salary of $1.6 million annually and has the opportunity to earn an annual cash bonus that could range from $3.6 million to $7.2 million depending on his performance. He will also be eligible for annual equity awards worth up to $23 million.

70 comments

Oh cool, more corporate waste...

Brian Niccol "Guess what plebs? I commute over 1,000 miles one way to get the office. If I can do it, so can you. Get your asses into the office, plebs."
- Send the corporate jet to pick me up and I will consider it.
  
  Best we can do, is offer you a 2 hour commute stuck in heavy traffic.

“It’s becoming increasingly common because we’re still in a competitive labor market,” he explains. “Executives aren’t accepting job offers if flexibility isn’t on the table.”
CEOs of major corporations aren't a "labor market". They're a bunch of narcissists looking for their next hit. They won't accept working conditions that don't favor them because they a) don't need to work and b) their motivation is being a business king and the more ridiculous the package is, the better it feels. It's just a MBA delusion that he has a special brain worth tens of millions of dollars more than promoting some underling. That the market thought 10% of Chipotle's entire value was this guy's special brain is just insanity.

The climate crisis could be solved with probably just a single guillotine.
- Axes are more portable, and the turn around rate is faster. Just saying.
  
  I’m intrigued by both of your suggestions and wish to subscribe to your newsletters.
  
  “Your honor, the defendant qualified their statement with the phrase “just sayin.” Clearly they cannot be prosecuted and this case must be dismissed.
- We're not calling it supercommuting, insufferable wankers made that word up about themselves
  I prefer cuntycommuting
- Bold of you to assume the people who replace the billionaires we kill would be better
  
  They never said the guillotine wouldn't be a permanent fixture.
- In Ministry for the Future, the opposition to this garbage is successful by bringing down a few choice flights with drone swarms, then announcing more will come to those who dare.

Supercommuting, instead of teleworking because that would embolden employees to ask for full-time teleworking.
Can't have the plebs think they have some power.

Starbucks is anti-climate pass it on.

I have no idea who this guy is.
And already I hate him.
- He's from Chipotle, so Starbucks basically just replaced their top guy with a clone.

I bet he won't be fired if his plane is delayed 20 minutes. Unlike a barista who got stuck in traffic.

This is really going to go a long way to make up for all the lost pollution from all the folks that started working from home recently

Well fuck you and your co² farting anus, Brian Niccol!

"if this is my commute, there's no reason for anyone to be remote"

Hmm i live 1000 miles from work, which do i do: literally use technology that works at the speed of light(internet) or burn a shitton of fuel and propel myself at high speeds towards the building where i work. I think the answer is obvious.
- Or third option, move. And there's always the default option, don't work there

We don't need to make up new words to normalize an obnoxious asshole exercising his wealth in a vulgar display of maleficence towards the environment.
- 10$ says Elon Muks will try to make SUPERCOMMUTE happen 🤪🫠🙄
  
  No, he'll call it something much stupider like "Gigacommute"
  
  If you look at his flight records, motherfucker does not even supercommute. Many of his flights are simply across town. It's nuts how wasteful he is with flying.

Psssst.... Starbucks... You're doing it wrong.
CARBON: 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in Starbucks direct operations and value and supply chain.
https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/planet/

A few questions here:
Why the fuck does Starbucks have a corporate jet? I know they're a global company, but surely the CEO doesn't need to be abroad that often?
Why would a company subsidise travel for a CEO to the tune of (likely) as much as he would get paid in a salary? If I were to tell my employer "I want to supercommute it'll cost you $100k" I'd be laughed out. Hell, if I asked for $100 I'd probably be laughed out of the room...
Jets aren't even remotely cheap to run. They cost millions, they cost tens of thousands to operate, and that doesn't include personnel costs or costs regarding runway rental or the kind of shit a CEO would need while in the air.
- Also, how many million tonnes of CO2 will this dump into the high atmosphere every year?
- This is an unfortunately normal perk for c-level execs at major corporations. I’d be surprised if Starbucks only had one. He also most certainly has a driver (likely with military experience), and an apartment at the Ritz or similar in Seattle - all covered by the company.
- For the reasons you mentioned I would hope this just means chartering flights. Owning a jet seems like the entire purpose is to flaunt how much money you can spend frivolously.
  
  Guess what C-level execs like to do?
  There was a real estate group I was interviewing with a while ago that was not particularly big and they owned a jet. Obviously not a 737 or anything but Bombardier makes jets that are smaller. Still expensive to run but C-level execs have convinced idiot boards members (who also ride around on the keys) that they are totally necessary.

That isn't "supercommuting", it's "stupidcommuting".

When he is not traveling for work, however, Niccol will still be expected to work from the Seattle office at least three days a week in alignment with Starbucks’ hybrid work policies, a company spokesperson tells CNBC Make It.
- He'll just need to travel to work to the starbucks near his home because reasons

To be fair, the offer letter mentions he is working from a remote office (and is able to hire an assistant of his choosing). I'm hoping this whole supercommute nonsense isn't daily and instead like.. monthly for some meeting or something.
Who am I kidding though, a $10M signing bonus? He gets up to $250K per year of personal use out of the jet? They'll even reimburse him $50K of legal and advisory fees he incurs having the offer reviewed by his own lawyers. That's where I stopped reading.
- Flight time itself should be about 2 hours and he's rich so he has options to skip most of the security theatre, that's... extreme but doable.
  He's the CEO though so I'd say yeah it being a regular thing is probably unlikely.
  
  No security theatre if you fly private. The most you get is a quick id check coming onto the field.

Supercommute sounds like a fancy way to say he can just rent or buy a luxurious place in Seattle to stay during the week.

I'm surprised by this because what rich guy wouldn't want to shift his income from a state with one of the highest if not the highest tax rate at his level of income to a state with no income tax?
It doesn't matter that the income will be sourced in Washington. He lives in California, and by that, the franchise tax board is hyper aggressive in getting their cut.
Note that the equity awards mentioned are taxable as well.

This commute is just salary.. the CEO should at least be charged the cost of the travels as income and taxed accordingly.

Our system is insane. CEOs do the least amount of work and adds NO value. Why do they get more pay than someone who provides actual value? The people with the hardest jobs should have the highest pay.
- ceo is literally the only job that can be fully replaced by the "ai" at the moment with no loss of performance whatsoever
  
  So why there are still many CEOs? I think shareholders would welcome saving some money and using AI to run their company.
  
  Capitalists in general can be replaced with AI and this is what freaks them out about it. AI makes having a secretary affordable now. An advertiser. Someone to draft rough legal documents. A brainstorming team. Etc.
- Yes, because leading a company is a trivial job every 3 year old can do.

That’s not bad for the climate.

Would be a benefit for the environment if he'd supercrash.

Going to need a shit load of frappuccinos

I guess rto is hitting everybody

I wouldn’t really care about him traveling, just make him take the responsibility for the produced emissions.
Tbh, everyone should take responsibility for their emissions. That includes billionaires, as well as working class. I believe it would be a correct approach to the environmental issue.