No, we’re not making this stuff up. Instead, we looked it up with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), which tracks insider trading and executive compensation details. That includes Pandora founder Tim Westegren, whose stock cashouts are markedly increasing, not decreasing.
Westegren’s annual base salary isn’t specifically listed in SEC filings, though most of this executive peers are making between $300,000 and $400,000 a year.
On the stock side, the stats show that Westergren has now cashed $15.1 million in Pandora stock since the company went public, with absolutely $0 stock purchases.
I’m all for capitalism, but this is vulgar.
In what way? What is wrong with cashing out stocks you own?
Doesn’t track well with this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/17/pandora_fairness/
It has absolutely nothing to do with that.
Tim isn’t Pandora. These are his personal transactions. It has no effect on Pandora’s royalty battles and their desire to finally turn a profit.
Oh c’mon Casey. Read some of this guy’s comments, he thinks he’s helping artists and doing good in the world and handing working artists a gift called Pandora.
Why do they hate me!?
“Tim isn’t”
Tim? 🙂
So he’s a friend of yours? That explains a lot…
ROFL!!!
QUOTE “their desire to finally turn a profit. ”
and thats the connection..
People support companies sometimes more because of the “why” then the “what”.. Apple is a great example of that..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Sinek
When the CEO looks like hes cashing out as fast as he can, it looks like he doesnt believe in it..
If the CEO doesnt believe in its future, Why should congress, the artists, and the public?
CEO’s of music companies (and yes just about all of them) don’t care about the music, artists, consumers, employees, interns… the list could go on. They care about one thing, themselves. They care about their legacy (which is usually a HUGE facade), their own compensation, their own benefits, their time.
And artists only care about the money which is why they only talk about how Pandora is stealing their art and as opposed to promoting it. I can’t understand why aritsts don’t apprecieate that I discovered their work. In fact the licensing by artists like the Beatles, Michael Jackson and others continues to show that they just want money. They don’t actually care about their fans or making art.
“Beatles, Michael Jackson and others continues to show that they just want money.”
Yeah, they’re just a gang of evil zombies.
Yeah, literally every artist makes as much as all of those you mentioned. Why don’t they just sell t-shirts or something?
And what do you do for work?
Maybe you should do it “just for the love of it” and then I’ll sit back and appreciate what you do and not pay you anything. In fact, I need my house repaired. You should fix it for free while I enjoy it. That means you need to buy expensive tools, spend a lot of time getting it right and pay for the materials to get the job done.
You are a douche. You are probably on welfare. You probably got a “baby momma” and split the public assitance so you can afford weed with your medical marijuana card because of your “disability.” I’m guessing that happened at your local state university where you majored in sociology and have $50,000 in student debt and a life-long love of Pabst.
I resent the Pabst comment. Businesses exist to make money. They do not exist without that, plain and simple. Tim Westergreen was and still is passionate about artists connecting with fans and Pandora being the medium to do that. His model is expensive and truly is not a level playing field for all mediums. His attempt to change that, IMO, has been incorrectly identified with greed. Pandora will probably make money, but it will take time. The bad press bandwagon is not helping. He’s running one of the best, legit, user-friendly Internet mediums out there. If the press and broke musicians/songwriters (and I am one) need a target, please save it for the pirate sites, Clear Channel or somebody who really deserves it.
GX is a troll, ignore him
I want a article about the red arrow. Can you post a behind-the-scenes tutorial that shows how you include it in every story? Preferably the step-by-step instructions would themselves include red arrows. Thanks!
Careful what you wish for Champion…
from the tattered pages of DMN:
“There are artists making more than $2 million from Pandora,” Westegren told attendees at SF Music Tech Summit during a morning discussion. “And, many artists are making more than $100,000.”
“You’d be surprised at how many artists are making more than the average household income in America. We’re talking about making a living on Pandora alone.”
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/121008pandora
“You’d be surprised at how many artists are making more than the average household income in America. We’re talking about making a living on Pandora alone.”
“That’s why I want to cut their wages by 80%,” he explained.
Awesome comment!
You have to help yourself, in order to help others, seems to be Westergren’s motto here. Of course, he has the right to cash out, but this systematic selling of shares every month, just gives you the impression that the founders do not believe in their own company.
It should be clear now to anyone that Pandora does not want to help artists in any way, at least not in the way they would like us to believe. I think they really wanted to make the world a better place in the beginning, but during the last couple of years, they’ve forgot about their original mission.
“Making” generally means salary, so the headline is misleading.
He’s cashing out stock, meaning he’s liquidating his equity in the business. There are legitimate reasons to do this that have nothing to do with the future prospects of Pandora, but usually this would be spun by naysayers as “OMG what does Tim Westergren know that we don’t about the dismal future of Pandora?”
So get with the program! 😉
Quote ” There are legitimate reasons to do this that have nothing to do with the future prospects of Pandora”
Really? name three…
1. Diversification: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
2. “I spent the last 5 yrs beating up musicians for lower royalties; now my wife is divorcing me and wants cash money right now.”
3. “I have certain gambling debts that certain people are insisting I repay; and I legitimately want to keep on breathing.”
There.
QUOTE: Blarg “There are legitimate reasons to do this that have nothing to do with the future prospects of Pandora
1. Diversification: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” 2. “I spent the last 5 yrs beating up musicians for lower royalties; now my wife is divorcing me and wants cash money right now.” 3. “I have certain gambling debts that certain people are insisting I repay; and I legitimately want to keep on breathing.””
I’ll give you #2, and #3, as breathing & the law, outweigh any ‘job title’ LOL
but #1 DOES affect future prespects of Pandora.. diversification inherently means you dont believe your primary stock is solid enough to stand on.. for a regular investor it makes sense.. for the CEO of a company to do it is like hearing an announcement “abandon ship!!” and you look around and realize it was the Captain of the ship, and he is already lowering in a lifeboat.. it doesnt instill a lot of confidence in the passengers 🙂
just sayin..
1. I’m a douche
2. I’m a thieving douche
3. I’m going to screw songwriters with a congressionaly mandated uber-low rate of “buttfuck nothing.” Once I do that I’m going to sink Pandora with some lame “profit generating” scheme and then launch a brand new program that I can make 10 times the amount of money off of because BY LAW I can pay songwriters “buttfuck nothing.” Therefore, I am a douche.
And no will/can do anything about it.
AMERICA, LAND OF POWERLESS RIGHTS
UP HERE North of the 49th, WE don’t/won’t have PANDORA, because we won’t PANDER to the likes of Westergren’s HUMAN RITES TRAVESTY.
GOD BLESS AMERICA, LAND OF ALMOST EVERYTHING FREE!
Land of free music but criminally expensive healthcare.
and then there’s that pesky Canadian screw everyone law:
Canada
Main article: File Sharing in Canada
In Canada, the status of legality of file sharing is disputed, though in practice file sharing is tolerated. In addition, in the 2004 case of BMG Canada Inc. v. John Doe, court decided that both downloading music and putting it in a shared folder available to other people online were legal in Canada. It has led to harsh criticism from organizations like International Federation of the Phonographic Industry:
Canada, practically the only government of a developed country not to have implemented international copyright treaties agreed over a decade ago, is a major source of the world’s file sharing. A disproportionate number of illegal sites are hosted on Canadian soil.[6]
And theres an example when copywrite law is unable to change with the times fast enough..
In 2012 Canada has rewritten the copywrite law (addressing some of those problems)
but it basically originally stemmed from the fact that Canada was originally pretty progressive.. Canada was one of the first ones to implement a usage tariff whereby the artists saw payment for people copying the music (tariff was placed on cassettes and CDR’s).. Problem is… technology powered ahead making those tariffs useless but the law itself essentially validated copying.
catch 22 if you will..
Canada (unlike the US) has always (via its copywrite law) allowed both the artist and the writers to ask for payment when their material is copied and/or broadcast (including terrestrial radio). They were also pretty progressive (somewhat fair) in the dealing with internet and streaming.. (not a free ride, but on par with other broadcasting rates)
Also
you need to take into account that Canada has a very high adoption of the internet , Canada is in the top 20 with the # of users (>28 mil), but also in the top 20 for percentage of users (>80%)
and lastly, Canada has some pretty strict privacy walls (Facebook changed many of its privacy options primarily because of Canada), making it hard for the PRO’s to force IP address’es out of internet providers..
so i’m not disagree with the post above, but it needs to be taken in context with whats happening today, and the problems with copywrite law in general..
This does NOT look good. Especially coming from the guy who a couple of years ago was pleading with musicians to get behind Pandora in their court case because they were in danger of losing the service. Its like American Idol, X Factor, etc. The musicians are extremely lucky to get anything out of it, while the producers, CEOs are laughing all the way to the bank. Now he’s going from one of us to one of THEM. Does not look good.
Here’s a link to the raw data:
A couple of things this article (and most of the commenters) seems to miss:
1) Nobody is being “paid” a $ million a month. Westergren is selling stock he already owns, by virtue of being granted it in the IPO. He originally owned 1.6% of Pandora, or 2.8 million out of of 175 million shares. Yes, that’s a lot, but it’s not like that’s new info.
2) The sales are automatic — they were set up before the IPO. The article mentions that he hasn’t bought any shares, as if that’s an indication of something being wrong. Actually, it would be an indication of something wrong if he DID buy shares — that would be insider trading, which is illegal. (Westergren obviously knows all sorts of non-public information about Pandora, which may be positive or negative. So he’s not allowed to decide whether or not to buy or sell shares; that has to be previously set up.)
I don’t know why the article says the “stock cashouts are markedly increasing, not decreasing.” That’s simply not true — look at the table. It’s 85,000 shares each month. Are they confused because the stock price changes, generally going up? (That’s a good thing.)
One would expect (and in fact encourage) a founder to diversify their holdings (ie: sell shares of their own company and buy other, non-related things) so it’s not surprising that he’s doing it. I am a bit surprised at how much he’s sold, however — he’s liquidated half his stock in 18 months. (I don’t know enough about IPOs to know if this is unusual or not, but it’s more than I would expect.)