Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

Why should your competitors be the only ones to get rich?

It sucks watching another team win, especially during a long losing streak. That feeling extends beyond sports. Perhaps it’s even stronger in business, where insiders are constantly in compensation-measuring contests.

For that reason, it always catches our attention when it seems like one company watches another’s insider enrichment and asks their board to do the same for them. Ostensibly, one company fundamentally altering executive compensation can be independent of another’s decision to do the same, but we think envy and greed can drive this kind of copycat behavior.

So, when we observed one player initiate a new plan for management—one that would go on to be worth tens of millions of dollars—it piqued our curiosity. But once we watched a peer initiate almost the exact same plan, we started taking a closer look at the whole industry. It deserves your attention, too.