Eric Schmidt of Novell. He presided over a period of decline at Novell where its IPX protocol was being replaced by open TCP/IP products, while at the same time Microsoft was shipping free TCP/IP stacks in Windows 95, making Novell much less profitable. In 2001, he departed after the acquisition of Cambridge Technology Partners. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin interviewed Schmidt. Impressed by him, they recruited Schmidt to run their company in 2001 under the guidance of venture capitalists John Doerr and Michael Moritz. In March 2001, Schmidt joined Google's board of directors as chairman, and became the company's CEO
Executive compensation in the United States Former SEC Chairman, William H. Donaldson, called executive compensation "and how it is determined ... One of the great, as-yet-unsolved problems in the country today." One factor that does "not" explain CEO pay growth is CEO productivity growth if the productivity is measured by earnings performance. Measuring average pay of CEOs from 1980 to 2004, Vanguard mutual fund founder John Bogle found it grew almost three times as fast as the corporations the CEOs ran—8.5 percent/year compared to 2.9 percent/year. Whether CEO pay has followed the stock market more closely is disputed. One calculation by one executive compensation consultant (Michael