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What can you buy for a buck? How about international press coverage fluffier than a sheet of Charmin? That's what Cisco got today for revealing that its chief executive, John Chambers, would take just $1 in salary this year.

"Big-wig works for a buck" was a spin so sweet that no headline writer could resist it, and a wave of Cisco-friendly copy followed. Quoting at length from a proxy statement filed by Cisco, a widely carried Reuters account took pains to emphasize that Chambers refused a bonus even though the company had met all its goals. Yet, miraculously, Chambers' hands are not empty. Halfway through the Reuters report, one learns that "The 53-year-old executive, who was paid $268,131 and was not granted a bonus in the previous year, also declined to accept 2 million of the 6 million stock options he was granted as long-term compensation." A pause now while we grab our calculators ... that would be, let's see ... 4 million options that the earnest exec found he could decently accept.

Of course, it's hard to say just what those options might be worth one day, especially since their strike price is well above the stock's current value. One possibility is that Cisco stock (now in the $9 range) will increase in value, bringing Chambers a healthy profit. That possibility was not mentioned by the Associated Press, which sharpened its St. John the Martyr angle by noting only that the options "could be worthless unless Cisco's stock meets certain targets." Reuters took its Cisco flattery the other direction, swallowing the company's estimate that the swan-diving stock will easily grow 10% each year for the life of the options. Total takeaway: past $99 million.

Credit News.com for pointing out why Chambers can afford to take a wait-and-see approach: He's richer than cream gravy. In fact, just last month, Chambers showed up on Fortune's "Greedy Bunch" list of execs who profited the most from January 1999 through May 2002. "You Bought, They Sold," quipped the magazine, which placed Chambers in the top 20, with $239 million. And last year, the San Jose Mercury News calculated that Chambers' total pay for the year was 8,653 times the annual income of a Cisco janitor.

We don't mean to knock Chambers too hard. So far, he compares well with other execs who worked for a dollar or less in salary this year. Be sure to read about Steve Jobs, a fellow buckaroo, in Business Week's analysis last week of the worst corporate boards. And don't miss the Financial Times' report today of the resignation of Conseco chief Gary Wendt, who drew not a penny in salary (though $53 million in bonuses) while steering his company toward bankruptcy. Here's an angle no one's tried in a while: Maybe when it comes to salary, you get what you pay for. - Lori Patel

Cisco CEO's Salary Stays $1 Amid Sharp Decline in Sales
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1033676428118186713,00.html
(Paid subscription required.)

Cisco CEO paid $1 in fiscal 2002
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/4206469.htm

Cisco CEO draws $1 salary
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-960745.html

Cisco CEO Takes Yearly Pay of $1 (AP)
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Business/ap20021003_1867.html

Cisco pays CEO Chambers $1 (Reuters)
http://europe.cnn.com/2002/BUSINESS/10/04/cisco.reut/

Sentiment on Cisco Takes Turn for the Worse
http://www.thestreet.com/_tsclsii/tech/scottmoritz/10045323.html

Wendt quits as chief executive of Conseco (Financial Times)
http://tinyurl.com/1s9g

Low-wage workers see widening gap with valley exec elite (San Jose Mercury News)
http://tinyurl.com/1s9i

The Greedy Bunch
http://www.fortune.com/insiders/execs.html

While the media lauded good cop John Chambers and his dollar bill, bad cop Ken Lonchar was quitting his job as CFO of storage software maker Veritas. It seems Lonchar was lying on his resume when he said he had an MBA from Stanford, and now that you mention it, his supposed undergrad alma mater, Arizona State University, has no record of him either. No journalist alive could resist pointing out that Veritas means "truth" in Latin. We'll add that it's Harvard's motto, so for full ironic effect, Lonchar's fake MBA should have come from there.

This was "a revelation that rankled investors fed up with deceitful executives," as the AP put it. Veritas' chief executive, Gary Bloom, tried to contain the damage by insisting Lonchar's fib "has no bearing on the accuracy of our financial results or the quality of our financial procedures and controls." Regardless, investors in trust-no-one mode sent the stock down 19%. Reuters said the stock "has weathered the technology bust better than most" -- make that "had."

Observers seemed more concerned with Veritas' books than with the moral implications of lying to get a job. That's because everyone does it, or so it seems. A number of outlets ticked off lists of other highfliers who fictionalized their CVs. Ex-Salomon Smith Barney analyst Jack Grubman said he went to MIT, Hong Kong entrepreneur Richard Lee claimed Stanford, historian Joseph Ellis said he fought in Vietnam, and former Notre Dame football coach George O'Leary invented quite a bit of his background. CNN cited statistics that 89% of job seekers lie on their resumes by covering employment gaps, exaggerating job responsibilities, and so on.

Either we're a nation of liars (no comment) or there are reasons for all this, namely pressure and competition. The Register asserted, "People [in the U.S.] without good degrees from expensive universities find it a lot harder to climb very far up the corporate ladder." The Register's home country, England, certainly has class snobbery of its own, but we get the point. Lonchar's reportedly good performance as Veritas' CFO does make a person think twice about whether an executive really needs an MBA from anywhere. But most of us at Unspun just have an undergrad liberal arts degree, so what do we know? - Jen Muehlbauer

Forbes ASAP Will Be Shut Down
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/03/business/03CND-FORBES.html

Harvard Business Review appoints magazine veteran as new editor
http://www.boston.com/news/daily/03/hbr_editor.htm

NY Stock Exchange board under scrutiny as two quit
http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2002/10/03/rtr740897.html

Antitrust Chief to Join ChevronTexaco
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40922-2002Oct3.html

Pitt Backs Away From Oversight Candidate
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40891-2002Oct3.html

Spitzer, Pitt Call Truce on Wall St.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40879-2002Oct3.html

Veritas Finance Head Resigns Amid Resume Discrepancies
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1033646723832681913,00.html
(Paid subscription required.)

The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week
http://www.thestreet.com/tech/georgemannes/10045858.html

Tech Firms Use Air Freight, Internet to Avoid Port Fallout
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB103368233843864833,00.html
(Paid subscription required.)

SEC, PwC Near a SettlementOver Audits of MicroStrategy
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1033690399602130833,00.html
(Paid subscription required.)

Xerox Pension Plan To Pay $284 Million
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1033678798969783833,00.html
(Paid subscription required.)

WorldCom: Web Access Is Restored (AP)
http://tinyurl.com/1sbi

Copyedited by Jim Duffy (jimduffy86@yahoo.com).

Advertising: Erik Vanderkolk (erikvanderkolk@yahoo.com).

Editor and publisher: Jimmy Guterman (guterman@vineyard.com).

Media Unspun is produced by The Vineyard Group Inc.
Copyright 2002 Media Unspun, Inc., and The Vineyard Group, Inc.
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