We Fixed It, You're Welcome - Paramount's $69 Million Problem

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

In this episode of "We Fixed It, You're Welcome," the hosts tackle the controversial topic of executive compensation, focusing on Paramount Pictures and its former CEO Bob Bakish's $69.3 million severance package.  The panel, including guest Erik Akutagawa, discusses the ethics of golden parachutes, their impact on employee morale, and potential solutions to align executive pay with company performance. They explore ideas such as performance-based vesting, clawback provisions, and linking executive outcomes to worker protections.  The conversation delves into the broader implications of these practices across industries, touching on similar issues in sports and retail. The hosts propose structural reforms to create more accountability and fairness in executive compensation, while acknowledging the challenges of implementing such changes in the current corporate landscape. Disclaimer: A quick disclaimer. We are going into this somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice or anything that would get us in trouble. These are our views and opinions. We're here to ask the kinds of questions everyone's thinking. Have an engaging conversation and maybe come to some conclusions that we feel are worth exploring. By the end, if we fixed it, you're welcome. All trademarks, IP and brand elements discussed are property of their respective owners. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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All right, here's how this works. In each episode, we pick a company we all know that has something going on right now. Then we put ourselves in charge and see if we can fix it. You'll be hearing from Melissa and Operations, Chino on people in culture, and me on marketing. My name's Aaron. As always, a quick disclaimer, we are going into this somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice, or anything that would get us in trouble. These are our views and opinions. We're here to ask the kinds of questions everyone's thinking, have an engaging conversation and maybe come to some conclusions that we feel are worth exploring. By the end, if we fixed it, you're welcome. All trademarks, IP, and brand elements discussed are property

of their respective owners. Hey there, fixaholics and welcome to an action-packed episode of We Fixed It, you're welcome. Grab your $40 collectible popcorn buckets because today we're going to the movies. That's right, we're going to talk about Paramount Pictures. Now Paramount's been rolling films since 1912, making it one of the oldest and most iconic studios in Hollywood history. You know it, by the mountain logo with the stars that fly in. It's brought us the Godfather trilogy, Titanic, Star Trek, Indiana Jones, and tons of scenes of Tom Cruise running in Mission Impossibles. That guy runs a lot. We'll get more into Paramount and studio math and our topic for today. But before we do, we don't have the amazing Chino here today, but let me introduce our guest,

Eric Akutagawa. Eric has had a very interesting and multifaceted career and put in some time in the Hollywood machine. Eric, tell us a little more about yourself. Sure. Thanks, Aaron. Hi, everyone. My name is Eric Akuta Gawa. I've led Academy Award winning teams and visual effects and technology, including Paramount. Paramount Paramount was one of my clients. I've led number one priorities at NFL, Ticketmaster, and Sony. Most recently, I was Chief Product Officer and Senior Director of Program Management for a gaming startup, and Chief Operating Officer for my nonprofit Baja missions.

My passion is partnering with startup CEOs on strategic planning, execution, and delivery, making sure you are always prioritizing and delivering what brings maximum impact and value with your customers. Thanks for having me, Aaron. Excited to be part of this conversation. Thank you, Eric. Thanks for joining us, and I know we're going to have some fun today. So Paramount's been around since the Golden Age of Cinema and the early days of TV, has huge hits like the ones I mentioned a little bit earlier.

And box office bombs too. It happens. Paramount's been bought, sold, split up, and rebranded more times than we can count here. most recently becoming Paramount Global after the merger with Viacom and CBS. He became a player in the streaming wars with the launch of Paramount Plus back in 2021, which is picking up subscribers but doesn't seem to be a profit driver quite yet. And we'll talk about Paramount Pictures, Paramount, the whole parent company, and it's all fair game. A lot of the credit for the company's strategic decisions, the restructuring, the potential as a streaming service,

has been attributed to one person, many people, but let's focus on Bob Backish. Backish was with the company since 1997 coming up to positions at Viacom and MTV Networks and finally became CEO in 2016. He resigned on April 29th, 2024 when Paramount was in a bit of a crisis underperforming in the stock market and there were widespread reports of interpersonal friction. But that's not the end of our story. It was recently announced that Bob Backish is walking away with a severance package reportedly worth $69.3 million. That's $69.3 million to not come to work anymore. That's a pretty sweet deal. And this is during a time of rising movie ticket prices, directors that can't get their projects funded, staffing cuts, and box office not being as predictable

as it used to be. So Eric, is this Hollywood being Hollywood or should we all be scratching our heads at a $69.3 million severance package? I think it could be both. To be honest, so I just saw this past week that the Cole CEO, Ashley Buchanan, was fired and he was on the job for less than five months. And his comp package was $20 million. He was fired with cause. With cause, too. Yes. They had a good reason to house him.

Absolutely. But still, $20 million did not show up to work. I have some sports background being with the NFL. So the NBA Phoenix Suns fired their head coach this season after one season. Mike Bolthoser was fired in April. He's being paid $10 million through 2029 for not coming into work. He doesn't even have to get out of bed. and he will make $10 million per year through 2029.

So it is not unique to Hollywood, but obviously Hollywood is definitely a mainstay, main focus. So as a company, you take, you know, you go through such a rigorous process to find a corporate leader, elevates through the ranks as CEO, battles other people to hold on to that position, and then they just abruptly leave and they get a payout. Why is, you know, Melissa, why does that happen?

Well, from the financial and operations perspective, these packages, golden parachutes as they're called, are prenegotiated in most of their contracts when they come on board. So even if you've been a head coach for only a season, you've got that in your contract, right? Backish probably had this. I don't know, 69.3 million was in his contract. If that was, I want to know who his lawyer was because that's really great, amazing package, especially when Paramount is claiming financial distress. So it's really kind of hypocrisy at its greatest. But I think this is something that we've talked about too. And Eric, we talked about this in a previous episode about CEOs failing upwards. So this is really kind of hand in hand with that because their ability to fail upwards is the fact that they have this package, though they're not really failing because they're getting money and then exposes the fact that they can go out and do whatever else they want to do. You know, it's really, really leadership stability issue as well. I mean, it undermines continuity at the, at wherever you're working, for example.

And the message to employees just as brutal. I know Chino would want to talk about that. Loyalty and hard work are penalized, you know, layoffs, stagnant wages, really low bonuses or not hitting bonuses, while failure at the top level is rewarded. So this just erodes any type of morale and trust in leadership. And I think that, Aaron, one of the things that we're seeing now is like this wave within the work world. It's this revolution of like understanding that you're a cog in the machine and that that's all you are. And so like people are not because so many people are being laid off in various industries.

Like, you know, Eric, you're kind of in the mix of all of it, like in tech, in, you know, hospitals. hospitality and health care all over. And it seems like there doesn't feel like strategically. There's any rhyme and reason. And so I'd love to hear both Aaron, you know, like, how do you come back from this as a brand? And then, Eric, I'd love to hear from your perspective as you're coaching up CEOs and doing the strategic work that you're doing.

Like we've had this struggle understanding like, how does this keep happening? And where is where is the disconnect between? what the outside world sees, right? And what is actually happening in the boardroom. Well, I think, you know, as a brand, there can be some braggadocio to your brand. Like, we spend it. You know, we'll pay to get the best most highly compensated CEO. We'll pay lavish budgets to put out these big tent poles, you know, and that could be part of your brand. And it crosses over to sports too, right? We'll pay for the top talent. We drive nice cars. You know, it could be part of your brand image.

But when you start to stumble or you put out three box office bombs in a row or your team has a losing season, you know, it does kind of erode that sensibility that people are drawn to and they start questioning where, why are you spending? Why are you splashing like that, right? What do you think, Eric? Yeah, it's tough especially. I think the question was like at least in entertainment. How do you deal with the loyalty questions?

Do you really right now at the lower levels, you're meeting a lot of grinders. people who are trying to prove that their position and they themselves are worth the hire, they're worth the salary, and I am worth getting the bonus. But the reward you end up getting is getting laid off. And it doesn't matter what position you are, what you've done. Sadly, I'm kind of a testament to that. Working at some of these big brand companies, I was running the top priorities in these companies and still ended up getting laid off.

You just never know. And one of the challenges, I think, is when you are a big brand company, you want the best leader you can get. You have to package the best compensation package available to attract that leader. That leader comes in. They bring their own team in. You have this massive churn. You lay off a bunch of people to make new seats for this new team to come in.

That leader then leverages some special build, some special product, then jump ship to go to the next big thing because they're attracted by another big comp package. And then it just rinses and repeats. And you continue to see the cycle all over again. Having this. Yeah, I don't know. That's up. Go ahead, Aaron.

I was going to say having those comp packages is like, you know, in that parachute exit clause, it's like walking around with a candy bar. You know, I can wait until I'm hungry or I can wait until I had a bad day or I just want, you know, I want that immediate gratification. Where is that long-term, you know, dig in? I'm going to remake. If you really brought in at the highest level, you want to remake that studio in your image. Or if you, you know, in the case of Backish, came up with a, I think it was a five point plan.

You want to see those five points come to fruition, I would think. So you leave a legacy. You don't just, you don't just clock in, clock out. But if you're sitting on this, you know, exit clause that's in your favor, go by an island somewhere. What's the motivation to keep coming back day after the next? Yeah. And I think that you bring up some really good, both of you bring up really good points. and in my suggestions of like how to fix this, I think that we have to think about performance-based

vesting, for example, a real, the board and shareholder approval to voting for these packages, capping severance packages by two to three times their salary and their benefits, and linking executive and worker outcomes. Because, you know, if you reduce some of the severance, for example, maybe you wouldn't have to lay off I mean, $63 million, $69 million, that's a lot of money. That's a lot of people. Eric, you know, you worked with them. That's a lot of people in the trenches, right?

And is there a way to like defer the payments or whatever it might be? But, you know, bottom line, you know, the $69 million parachute, golden parachute for Bokish, isn't just Hollywood being Hollywood. It's really a broken system where it's executives, privatized gains and socialized law. losses and fixes exist. It's just the will to do it doesn't because why would you if you were walking away? It's all good. But if you think about it, he's walking away with $69 million while Paramount's stock fell 50% under his leadership. So again, failing upwards. So tying your payments to long-term performance really ensures executives only can cash out if they deliver. Right. So if your performance-based vesting. If your performance wasn't great, you're not going to get that package,

right? Clawbacks protect the shareholders by reclaiming that money if the company later tanks due to those exact decisions. And there are examples of companies that are trying to do something like that. So, for example, so Intel, CEOs, Pat Gelsinger's $179 million package is heavily stock-based, with 80% of it tied to performance metrics. So stock price, all of the types of KPIs that you look at for growth. So no payout if those goals aren't met. So if he leaves and nothing, he doesn't get that payout. I mean, 179 million sounds like a lot still.

And, you know, it just, I think it's something that these companies need to think about and not just Paramount, but others. And it's a way for you to kind of really connect. what it is, you know, this is something I talk about all the time from a leadership perspective is connecting the dots. So connecting the goals and the strategy to what you're actually, the value you're bringing every day to your job and to the work that you're doing. So to me, it feels like, yes, Erin, like you want the, you know, you both talked about like having that CEO that's going to bring the shine to your company. But if that shine is just, you know, a penny and it's not, it's not actually anything. behind that, I think that you're going to be in trouble. So that's one of the things I think could help and fix this is by really tying performance-based vesting in these packages at the get-go. So get the lawyers involved. But pre-negotiated or not, how are these types of packages justified in a studio system where you see VFX companies going under or animators saying we haven't

been paid? And I'm not talking, maybe it's maybe Paramount. I don't know specifically. But Eric, you know, Well, how do you justify the top level, not just the payday, but the severance that being paid to go away? That's really difficult. You brought up the VFX world. That is, oh, man, it's a broken business model that is unfortunately not been changed or fixed in any way, shape, or form in the few decades that it's been alive. And it will continue to perpetuate because the studios hold all the carts. They control it all. They're the owners.

So they can dictate who they pay, how much they pay, what type of work is getting done. And as a visual effects studio, since I've been on that side, it is a very, very difficult avenue to traverse because you are dealing with hard costs. You're dealing with timelines. But on the flip side, it's a creative industry. So how do you balance those two? Yeah. You know, and Paramount during Bakish's reign, which laid off in.

800 plus staff. So to your point, Aaron, like, how do you justify that, right? So linking the exact payouts to employee protections forces that shared sacrifice and that feeling like we're in it together. Deferring payments, for example, would also prevent the take the money and run and go to your next CEO role. And there's examples of them doing this in Europe, actually, where they, Germany has a law, which is called co-determination, where worker representative. And are on boards and they block like these excessive severances, right? So, you know, they might actually reduce the CEO exit pay by a certain amount if the company is not doing well or if it's going to threaten the sustainability of the workforce, you know, you know, and there's been examples,

you know, recently where there have been like co-sacrifices, right? So, for example, during COVID, a lot of companies, especially those led by high-paid CEOs that were getting, you know, stock options or whatever they were getting, kind of froze that in time to make sure that their employees were taken care of during this really unprecedented era. So they've done that before. And I don't know if it was peer pressure either, right? So when you start to see big companies where the CEO saying, I'm not going to take a salary so that I can make sure that our factories are still working or production is still. happening, you know, Paramount Studios, whatever it might be. That's meaningful, right? And that feels good. But then, like, now that we're out of that, it's almost like everybody forgot that. Right. Yeah. Yeah, you had Nintendo's Miyamoto and others cutting their own compensations dramatically to make sure that they could have, you know, a continuation of workforce and take care of their people. And it seems like this is the opposite situation. Is there any incentive, though, for these companies to redo these.

types of golden parachute contracts. That's the question, right? Like, you know, I, I wonder, you know, when there, is it because $69 million is a drop in the bucket? I don't, I don't know. Well, Eric, I don't know if you've been watching the studio, the Seth Rogan show that's on Apple, but that makes it, and I don't know how close to reality that is. I know, I know, I only know what I know, but it seems like everyone's kind of winging it. Is that, you know, from your experience is that, Is that, you know, is there a truth to that? I think there is a bit of truth to that. This is, this current stage in time is unprecedented to have streaming platforms and video games

and just all the technology. AI is now coming in. I mean, this time is unprecedented in history and the growth and the explosion that we're seeing and the finances that come with it. Again, unprecedented. I think the challenge is going to be, I mean, Melissa, what you're saying sounds great. But all the companies would have to follow suit because when you have a top talent, everybody's going to want that person. How do you attract that person?

You've got to put together the best comp package, and you have to draw that talent over. So if one company doesn't follow, that person's going to get the top talent. So, yeah, that's the challenge. Melissa, how does a company keep a 69 million or 120 or 150 million liability on the the books that could be cashed out at any time. How does that work operationally? Well, you know, I think that that is the thing that it's drawn from cash reserves or it's either added to debt and it's really kind of a one-time expense. And so it doesn't really, it does impact the overall operating expenses, so to speak. But like it's the same thing that when you have layoffs,

for example, and rifts with employees, it's kind of, it's this like one-time take down. And that's how a lot of reasons why, and Eric, you know this better than anyone, but like being in the startup world like I have been. A lot of times like right before a big board meeting or before some, you know, before you're putting out a report or you're doing some due diligence because maybe you want an IPO or you're going to BCs, you need your numbers to look better. And the best way to do that is through salary. So you will see a riff happen. And to your point, it's kind of willy-nilly. it's usually high high highly paid people like leaders myself you you know i always laugh erin this isn't funny for you but always marketing they always cut marketing which is kind of funny because to make

money you need to invest money but all right of course and so but you know it you know kind of this tile this panel right now we're we're kind of all on the chopping block that way and so to me i think that that's one of the things that is kind of interesting from a business perspective a business decision. And so, Erin, that's a great question. But I would say that that's already been reserved for that there's this thought of like, these are, these are the kinds of things. And that's why I was saying that one of the solutions might be bring it into a longer term, right? So it's not like a one and done. Though for, from a book perspective, it would be a lot easier if it was a one and done, right? Because you just, it's off the books then. But it would be in terms of like if you were

tying it to like the performance of the company, it matters when you leave too, right? Because if the company continues to tank, it says something about how you weren't being strategic and you weren't really helping to drive the growth and you weren't helping to get evolving the business into the future. So I think that it is definitely something that reduces those funds that are available to be used at the company if it hasn't been reserved for, but I'm assuming that some of these big packages have been reserved for. Okay. Well, I know there's, you know, people are working within the system and outside the system and trying to figure out how to flip the model on its head or do something that's more

integrated and participatory. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck did that with the Air movie, the Michael Jordan shoe movie that came out. But what's, Eric, if we could start to dismantle the system, if that's the right approach or rebuild it based on what we know now, what are, you know, Building blocks, what do we start doing? I do like Melissa's idea of making it more long-term. I think that's a great idea. I know from specific experience where a particular CEO of a big brand company was incentivized to raise the stock price, raise revenue quarterly, right? Because that's their goals.

Every quarter they've got to present their reports. So this CEO proceeded to cut lots of people every quarter, right? getting rid of your top cost, which is labor, as Melissa also mentioned. You get rid of the bottom line costs. Your net revenue goes up, right? Stock goes up. This person was awarded accordingly, and then this person left the company. And the company was in a horrible situation when this person left,

even though the stock price was really good. This company would look like it was making lots of money. But what ends up happening, right, you laugh all your senior leadership, and everybody down below is having to cover, they're not getting paid any extra. They're not getting any extra bonuses, promotions, raises, nothing. They're doing more work for less money. They're spending more time doing all the work

and not getting any compensation for it. So you're burning out your teams for nothing. So, yeah, if you had been able to incentivize this particular person to stay longer and have results over the long term, including your employee feedback, right? How are they doing? Are they all having mental health issues because you've burnt them out over the course of months, maybe years?

So I think that would be a good metric also to cover. I like more of that accountability. And they're like a 360 review, like you're saying. How are your people doing under your leadership? Because Melissa, you were talking about marketing, and that's triggering to me when you say, you know, I've heard it in my lifetime. Marketing is going to get cut.

We're cutting all over marketing. And I say, how are you going to grow your business? How do you expect to survive? But when you, you know, when marketing's held to such tight metrics and especially if you're on the outside, you know, if you're contracted or you have some type of engagement and you don't prove out, you're gone. Like, no, no apologies, no, the door hits you on the way out. So I do wonder why there's such tolerance at the highest levels for, you know, for, you

steps in performance or these stock careening's, and then there's still that payout on the other end of it. Yeah, I'm not about like creation of processes or reforms to be overly dictated, you know, dictated. But I think that there does need to be some like structural reforms. And I think you both have brought up really interesting points. I would say, first of all, Aaron, you just mentioned this. You know, you get shown the door if you don't perform. So when you're exiting and you've created a golden parachute, why is it not performance-based, right? So why is it not performance-based? And in the same way, it should also be based on clawbacks for like layoffs, you know, if you extend it over time, like if the stock were to fall 50% after, you know, a year after you've left.

then we want 50% back of the golden parachute that we gave you. And they've done that like the Wells Fargo CEO who like left and got this big package. But then after he left was when all the stuff came out about Wells Fargo and all the fraud. So they did that. They took him to court and got half of it back. Right. So to me like this idea, I know I keep saying this performance base, but severance should only pay out if the executive actually delivers. The thing that's interesting, and Eric, I think you probably know this too, like seeing, you know, working with a lot of founders and CEOs and who have already put together their packages is that their performance goals are a little vague, right?

Like, Aaron, you probably would have a very specific growth goal, right? Like, we need to this, this, this, the churn needs to be at this, adoption needs to be at this, you know, retention, renewal, all those kinds of things. and have a specific OKR and a goal. But like, what is the goal for the CEO? And how does that, you know, trickle down and waterfall throughout the organization is really important? And, you know, there's a corporate responsibility to make sure that they have singularly the same goals that everybody else have that Aaron, you have, Eric, that you have that I have. But it's interesting because when you think about how these golden parachutes are put together or these packages are put together, are put together, it doesn't seem like that's there, right? Because to the point, like,

how is Batcha's getting $69 million when the stock dropped by 50%? And there were 800 people, more than 800 people that were laid off. So again, this alignment, Eric, you mentioned this too, but like the alignment with the worker with, I say worker, I mean at all levels, you know, we're talking about managing directors down. But if a company lays off X percentage of its workforce, 5%, 10%, then the package should also be adjusted down, right? Because when the package was created, we were at a different place in terms of production and in terms of monies. So, you know, if Paramount laid off 800 employees, 5% of its workforce, let's just make that

up. His package should have gone from $69 million down to like $53, $54 million, right? So it just seems like the executives know these games, and I won't call them games, but these ideas, and they use their legal team to structure their packages so that they don't have to answer to these. So again, I think that deferring the payments over time, you know, so that you can kind of see how performance does. but the challenge is that, you know, boards aren't, boards are approving these packages before they hire them, right? And after. And then the competition for CEOs, it's like musical chairs, right?

It's kind of like, I love to talk to you more, Eric, about like the NBA because I'm a Denver Nuckets fan. We just lost our coach. But like, it's musical cheers in the, in professional sports, right? Coaches go from one team to another team. Like, you know, it's like, aren't there any other coaches out there? Like, no, it's, you know, they're just going from one team to the other. So I think that that like market rate excuse, Aaron, you know, when you're talking about like, can you get the CEO that's going to bring something able? I mean, then you'll give them the package, you know, because of course you don't think they're going to fail. It seems like everybody does have missteps. So. Well, if I can go back to the Cole's CEO example, yes, he was let go because of he did something. bad things, but also understand he came from Michaels, which was also a failing company. So similarly, I think you have this situation where it's these companies, these boards are hiring familiar names. They'd rather hire familiarity within their circles who have failed rather than bringing in

somebody new who has been successful. You see that in sports and we see that in the business world. And it's interesting because like the Cole's example is a great example of where there was some unethical behaviors going on. And it was really about making your friends rich, right? So he had, or she, I don't even know with the Coles exec was that he or she. The Coles exec had set up a consulting contract for somebody he knew. And it was a multimillion dollar contract. And you're not supposed to do that.

Of course, you're not supposed to do that. But it just, it's just one of those things that it's always mind-blowing to me that people at these levels do things like that that just it's like that doesn't even make sense like why would you do that yet obviously probably got away with it in earlier leadership roles and maybe at michaels or wherever else they were and so it seems like it's okay you know and so those are you know if you know like if you were to do that as a VP do you think you'd get a package you probably get just fired right yeah unfortunately yeah we have a system where I mean, much like in politics, you have a group that makes laws for themselves, and they have a group that makes laws for everybody else.

And they are not one and the same. So these boards are filled with people who are approving one of their own. Right. Of course, there's backscratching and other conversations going on that we will never be privy to. But that's why it's going on. That's why I think. Imagine if you were in a lower level position, you know, your early career. By the way, it's very hard to get into these positions, you know, to get into Hollywood, into the studios, you know, people that are creatives or artists.

They work really hard to get, you know, land a spot at an entry-level job that they're probably overqualified for. But let's say someone, you know, did something with $800 or $1,000 to their benefit, you know, and they'd be out. They, like, why is this tolerated exponentially at the highest level? I have to go back to that. Right. It's just an, you know, like I know that, you know, as a leader in and as a high level leader, as well as having a team that reports to me, we all have to go through ethics training. We all have to go through all these things where it's like if you, if it's your sister-in-law that works there, you know, that has to be disclosed and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. So like academia, forget about it.

You know? So it's just a very interesting thing. And so like when I espouse like, oh, yeah, let's do some structural reforms. I realize that's like virtually impossible. But, you know, we're here to fix something. And that's one way to fix it. But I would say that it would be very, very difficult to do it that way. I just to be honest.

We are getting our wrap up. Let's see. Do we, you know, did we fix the studio system? Do we fix Paramount? Are they going to come out of this better? Are they going to hire another CEO from an adjacent studio and do this all over again? Melissa, what do you think? I don't think we fixed it, but I do feel like we shed light on it.

And I hope Taylor Sheridan was watching this so he can write Paramount TV series for us. I do think that there are really important discussions that need to be had. And, you know, I think that I really love that we talked about aligning the workforce. with these executive packages because I think that that's to me that's the saddest thing from a CX perspective is that like you know what you've just it's so your team will be so disengaged and and then you know as a as a consumer I'm like looking at this and just wondering what's going on right but I do wish that we could get more accountability I'd love to see you know investors the board shareholders having a voice at the table. I'd love to see it, you know, restructuring of how

these golden parachutes are created and that there's a little more, like I said, accountability to goals, accountability to the team and what the business is all about and its growth, as well as, you know, kind of playing it out longer term so that it's not just a one and done. But that's a task for. I agreed. Eric, what do you say? I agree with everything Melissa said. I would stick maybe a step further. I think if you look at Target as an example, they made some decisions that their customer base was not happy with, and they took action. And now that is affecting the CEO's compensation with the stock price. So that's something that can happen on the outside, right? And so if we look at Paramount, and that's what we're looking at towards making a change, maybe the

customer and users of Paramount products and content makes a difference. change and says, hey, I'm not going to go back until changes are made and I see it happening because I'm not going to support this anymore. Well, I'm inspired by something you both said about the tying the metrics of compensation to performance and you may have something pre-negotiated, but it's contingent on how well you do and how well your plans play out and how your stock does. You know, there's got to be some accountability there. But I think, you know, I'm going to take it a step further and say,

look, if the CEO gets a pre-negotiated three to 10-year salary, you know, exponential salary when they leave based on outsized performance, why don't we all get that, you know, put an institute at all levels. So you're just, you're starting out your first year. You know, if you overperform and your contribution is that valuable to Paramount or the company you're with, have three to five years of reserve of your salary ready to go when you walk out the door. That's a great motivator, you know, and maybe, of course, put some conditions around it.

So you can't take the same advantages that maybe the CEOs can and just say I'm out of here. But wouldn't that be a nice thing to come back to work and just know, yeah, you've got, maybe you've got stock options, maybe you've got health care. And you got this nice, you know, reserve. We don't, we, people don't stay with companies for decades like they did anymore for the most part. But you could walk away with something that says, thank, you know, the appreciation for your performance. And it's not just reliant to, to the CEOs, regardless of how well they do or how badly they mess up.

I'll have to work for you, Aaron. That's just how you're going to do. That's my fix this time around. Well, thank you, Eric, for joining us. I do want you to share with our listeners how they can find you. Sure. I'm on most of the major platforms, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, but LinkedIn is where you will find me most.

So if anybody wants to get in touch, has some feedback or wants to follow up, DM me there, and love to talk to you. Awesome. And we'll link to you on our site website page. for this episode. And thank you again for joining us. Thank you, Melissa. That does it for another episode of We Fixed It. You're welcome. Paramount, if you still have some money left over and you want to buy the movie rights to our podcast, we are for sale. Have your people call our people. And we just fixed your company. It's the least you could do. We'll work out the casting of ourselves in the

post-show wrap-up. And we'll see you next time. This podcast is produced by Straightforward Media Group, All Rights Reserved. If you'd like to learn more about how a podcast can help your company establish authority and generate leads, please email us at Eric at straightforwardmg.com or go to straightforwardmg.com for more information.