Company: ISRG
Filing Date: 2025-03-14
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0001035267-25-000098
Chunk: 94

Company: INTUITIVE SURGICAL INC
Filing Date: 2025-03-14
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 94
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the number of candidates is the same number of board seats). To increase the executive wealth (compensation) irrationally is to abuse the power.

Human nature has not changed so much since Aristotle. The Company has the flexibility to reform the Compensation Committee to improve the executive compensation program, such as to include the CEO pay ratio factor.

1 By Josh Bivens, Elise Gould, and Jori Kandra, September 19, 2024.

80

### BOARD STATEMENT IN OPPOSITION
The Board of Directors (the “Board”) has carefully considered this proposal, and the Company has engaged in discussion with the proponent to exchange perspectives on this topic. However, the Board believes that the proposal is not in the best interests of the Company and its stockholders and unanimously recommends a vote AGAINST this proposal.

The Company’s executive compensation program is designed to attract and retain a passionate team of executives who drive innovation that enables physicians and healthcare providers to improve the quality of, and access to, minimally invasive care for the patients they serve. Our strategy has been to provide a level of fairness within and across our programs to drive alignment of all employees, including our NEOs. This approach recognizes that, as a company, we are all one team with one mission. We believe our executive compensation program effectively aligns the interests of our executive officers with our company mission and our objective of creating sustainable long-term value for our stockholders. Our Board believes that, given the Company’s strong existing practices, which have historically received broad stockholder support as illustrated by the average approval of over 92% of votes for the Company’s Say-on-Pay vote over the past five years, this proposal would not meaningfully enhance the Company’s executive compensation program. For these reasons and others set forth below, after careful consideration, our Board unanimously recommends a vote AGAINST this proposal.

Our executive compensation program has been carefully tailored to help our Company achieve its critical objectives and align executives’ and stockholders’ interests.

The primary objective of our executive compensation program is to attract, motivate, and retain a passionate team of executives who will provide leadership to advance our Company’s work to drive innovation that enables physicians and healthcare providers to improve the quality of, and access to, minimally invasive care for the patients they serve. We seek to accomplish our goals in a way that is aligned with the long-term interests of our stockholders.

We employ a “team-based” approach to compensating our executives, which is predicated on two principles:

• Each executive, including