Facebook Executives Enjoy Huge Payday

Executives at Facebook received huge paydays for their 2013 efforts, even though the pay packages were not as lucrative as they had been the previous year in 2012.

On Monday, in a Facebook regulatory filing the company said three top executives of the firm earned over $10 million in salary, stock awards and bonuses in 2013. In 2012, three executives earned over $17 million.

Sheryl Sandberg, the COO at Facebook saw her compensation drop from the 2012 figure of $26.2 million to $16.1 million in 2013. However, executives at Facebook received a sizable portion of compensation in stock grants that are vested over a period of four years, so those figures could change depending upon how the share price of the company goes over time.

David Ebersman the CFO earned just over $10.5 million during 2013, which was down from his 2012 earnings of $17.5. Mike Schroepfer, the chief engineer at Facebook earned more than $12.6 million during 2013 down from his $20.7 million in 2012.

It does not appear the cuts in earnings were related in any to performance. Sandberg’s leadership was praised by the board at Facebook in the continued growth in revenue from mobile advertising, helping to grow the base of users on Facebook and strengthening relationships important to key policies globally.

The board said Ebersman contributed to the growth in revenue of the company and the execution of the financing forecasting and planning.

Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO accepted just a $1 salary in 2013, as had been announced previously, following other industry leaders in the technology field like Sergey Brin and Larry Page at Google.

Steven Jobs the late CEO of Apple famously took a salary of only $1 annually.

However, Zuckerberg will not be going hungry. As the leading shareholder at Facebook, his net worth, as of March 31 was around $27 billion.

Zuckerberg was given chartered air travel Facebook paid for, which was valued at over $650,000 during 2013.

Ad revenue at Facebook soared in 2013 by 72%, including strong mobile ads growth, which was a question mark for the social media giant. In all, sales reached $7.8 billion for 2013 compared to the 2012 total of $5.1 billion.