Fortune 500 companies are spearheaded by powerful women and men who make millions every year managing their respective multi-billion dollar companies.
The rich and powerful will always have enemies. People always will find a reason to hate. Maybe they are envious of the exorbitant amounts of money and want a piece of the pie. Maybe they don’t support the way the capital was earned. Whatever the reason, notoriety always seems to be followed by a level of resentment.
It’s hardly surprising how much money companies spend on security. After all, any great company’s biggest asset is its people, and no one is more important than a CEO.
Security costs across Silicon Valley
Personal security is not new. To name an obvious example, the President of the United States is surrounded by Secret Service 24/7. To the White House, it is worth the high monetary cost to keep the leader of the country safe — especially since any harm will be reflected upon everyone else (in this case the US population).
Companies who rake in billions of dollars because of their CEOs feel the same way. It is important to protect the great people who lead them to success, and the price tag is a small price for the sense of security.
In 2016, Jack Dorsey (Twitter) had security bills reaching $65k, according to an SEC filing. Today the number is probably at least double. Uber’s financial statements in March 2020 reported that Dara Khosrowshahi (Uber) spent about $600k. Tim Cook (Apple) gets paid $500k for security and travel, based upon Apple’s 2020 statement.
Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai spent a cool $1.2 million to keep himself safe in 2018— a stark increase from previous years likely due to attacks on the Youtube campus. Amazon spends $1.6 million to keep its CEO and founder Jeff Bezos safe, a number that has not changed since 2012. However, as one of the richest men on earth, it is reported that Bezos pays for additional security costs himself.
These CEOs of high-profile tech companies spend more on personal security than many people make in a lifetime. However, when it comes to spending exorbitant amounts of money on security, Mark Zuckenberg takes the cake.
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