High paying job

Clm

I don’t know how true this is but Palo Alto wow a average pay of 200k+

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/10/29/palo-alto-networks-typical-worker-makes-224k-per.html

TechGromit

I find that difficult to believe, also I like to know what constitutes an employee. I can believe that the best engineers and sales staff earn that much, but what about secretaries, the janitor, the guy in the mail-room. The only way are going to average that high is outsource everything, the secretary pool are from a staffing agency, the janitors are outside employees from an custodian contractor and so on. It reminds me of the Federal government's claim not one Federal employee lost there job due to the sequester cut. They neglected to count the one hundred thousand plus federal contractors that did, I guess they are not real people.

rj1790

The average cost of houses here are about close to a million dollars. So it definitely averages out.

EANx

Clm wrote: »

I don’t know how true this is but Palo Alto wow a average pay of 200k+

It's median, not average.

https://www.streetinsider.com/SEC+Filings/Form+DEF+14A+Palo+Alto+Networks+Inc+For%3A+Dec+07/14729165.html

"The median of the annual total compensation of all employees (other than Mr. McLaughlin) of ours (including our consolidated subsidiaries was approximately $223,885. This annual total compensation is calculated in accordance with Item 402(c)(2)(x) of Regulation S-K, and reflects, among other things, salary, all bonuses earned, commissions, other cash payments, PTO payouts, allowance, employer benefit and 401(k) contribution matches, ESPP purchase gain, and the aggregate “grant date fair value” of RSU awards granted during the 12- month period ended July 31, 2018."

BlackBeret

So total compensation, not pay. Averaging in sales teams commissions, managers bonuses, executive bonuses, insurance benefits paid, and everything else listed I'd say that might be average, if not lower compared to other major IT companies.

paul78

BlackBeret wrote: »

....I'd say that might be average, if not lower compared to other major IT companies.

It would be interesting to know. But bear in mind that it's a median as @EANx pointed out. This median is calculated as part of Dodd-Frank to provide CEO pay ratio disclosure.

I did a very un-scientific random look at a couple of 14A's to compare to Palo Alto (PANW). Pure Storage (PSTG) reports their median at $217K. Cisco (CSCO) reports their median as $132K.

I also looked up the median of most of the companies that Palo Alto reports in their 14A as their peer companies out of curiosity:

Akamai - $109K
Arista - $160K
Autodesk - $115K
Redhat - $108K
Fireeye - $149K
Fortinet - $114K
Paychex - $54K
Splunk - $256K
Square - $152K
Workday - $178K

All currency is USD. Note that SEC rules permit inclusion of lots of different components in calculating the compensation. And there are exclusions permitted such as not including employees that make up less than 1% (I think) in other countries. And I'm sure there are lots of other rules in play in coming up with that number.

This is how Palo Alto determines their median employee compensation:

We determined the median of the annual total compensation of our employees as of May 1, 2018 at which time we (including our consolidated subsidiaries) had approximately 5,139 full-time and part-time employees, including interns, approximately 3,275 of who are U.S. employees, and approximately 1,864 (or approximately 36% of our total employee population) of who are located outside of the United States. As permitted under the SEC rules, we then determined the median employee as of such date by excluding individuals from certain jurisdictions totaling approximately 1% of our workforce, leaving 5,092 employees in our median analysis. The countries (and populations) excluded were as follows: Argentina (2), Chile (2), Colombia (2), Costa Rica (1), Egypt (2), Hungary (1), Indonesia (15), Pakistan (2), Peru (2), the Philippines (10), South Africa (2), Tunisia (2), and Vietnam (4).

We then compared the sum of (i) the annual base salary of each of these employees for fiscal 2018, plus (ii) the total annual cash incentive bonus, commission or other cash compensation, as applicable, earned by each of these employees for fiscal 2018 as reflected in our payroll records, plus (iii) the aggregate employer benefit, 401(k) contribution benefits and ESPP purchase gains, plus (iv) the aggregate grant date fair value of equity awards (as determined in accordance with footnote 1 to the Fiscal 2018 Summary Compensation Table) granted to these employees in fiscal 2018, to determine the median employee. Compensation paid in foreign currency was converted to U.S. dollars using a spot exchange rate on May 1, 2018. In determining the median total compensation of all employees, we did not make any cost of living adjustments to the compensation paid to any employee outside the U.S.