Mellanox CEO Eyal Waldman makes an appearance on Israel television this evening, on Channel 2's "Anashim" ("People") program with Haim Etgar, and has some forthright things to say about executive pay.
"It disturbs me when people say 'Why do you get so much money?'" Waldman says, "In global companies, half the time you're not in Israel and a third of your life is spent on planes and you're not with the family and you make frightening decisions and work all the time, even when you're asleep. So what are you talking about, who are you to say how much a person should earn? How can you decide?"
In 2014, Waldman's salary cost was $2.2 million.
Waldman also commented on the case of Avigdor Kaplan, who received a bonus of about half a million shekels despite the collapse of the Mega supermarket chain, and then transferred the bonus to Mega's employees following public criticism. "What if he had saved the company?" Waldman asks. Later in the interview he says, "It's so hard to make money in business, and people don't appreciate it."
Commenting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Waldman said, "Israel could be made the best place in the world. First of all, we have to make peace. It seems naive, but here's an example: we employ 55 Palestinians, we contribute to a lot of places. We employ people in Nablus and Ramallah. We wanted to go to Gaza, maybe, and set up a development center there."
Gaza? How close is that to happening?
"Close. We're working on it."
Waldman adds, "You make peace with your enemies, with someone who wants to kill you. I'll kill anyone who wants to hurt me, but for all that I want us to live in peace. I know it isn't popular to say so but sometimes we have to say what's unpopular."
Mellanox develops InfiniBand solutions for accelerating data transmission between servers and storage centers via telecommunications systems. The company currently has a market cap of $2 billion. At its peak, it was worth $5.4 billion.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 28, 2016
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