It's whether to lease, buy or compensate. Thomas M. Siebel let his company use his personal aircraft for free. In return, however, the company picked up an undisclosed tab for operating and maintaining the plane. The company waived the interest payments on the 5.48 percent loan, however, and Re had repaid any of the loan by Dec. 31, 1999. Last May, Symantec made 4.9 percent home loans to two execs to buy or fix up properties.
Compensation is in the eye of the beholder.
And yet, eBay has made her one of Silicon Valley's richest citizens. She exercised all of them, and in barely a year was a paper billionaire. She can't sell most of the stock yet because the shares are restricted, but she is vesting monthly over a four-year period. Whitman didn't appear in the Mercury News' compensation survey a year ago because eBay's revenues didn't make the cut for consideration. And her gain on stock options doesn't show up this year because she exercised the options in 1998, not 1999.