He also almost singlehandedly killed the company....which the Wash Post article totally missed. While contractor revenue increased, they got killed in market share by Lowes and lost almost all of their core, the do-it-yourself remodeling market. With Bob's concentration on the contractor sector, had he stayed, HD would be out of business when that market collapsed. In some ways you could argue that $210 million to get rid of him saved the company. Note he's doing just as well at Chrysler.

A couple weeks ago the HD founders were on CNBC and said that Bob "never got retail" and that the board brought him in because he had lived under Jack Welch's aura at GE..however, he never got "real" responsibility at GE. Interesting.

But..I digress and his compensation wasn't the point of my comment...my point was the influence that a CEO can personnally have on a large company that depends on the efforts of the workers to generate it's revenue. If the leadership is bad, the company will suck too. Look at United.

Spongebob