As far as CEOs go, most of you would probably agree that Steve Jobs ranks right up there near the top of the list; those of you who are old enough to recall the Dark Days of 1996 most likely still consider it nothing short of a miracle that Steve was somehow able to keep the company from cratering in a thick, choking cloud of financial insolvency. But what really makes His CEOship the stuff of legend (aside from the obvious "ousted from the very company he cofounded, only to return and save it years later" angle, of course) is the fact that, besides the occasional private jet, his yearly salary has typically been a single measly dollar. That's the CEO compensation equivalent of saying "Shucks, ma'am, 'tweren't nuthin'; seeing you safe and no longer tied to the railroad tracks is all the thanks I need."

As it was, so shall it be again-- or, rather, so it was again. According to a CNET article, Apple just revealed in an SEC filing that, yes, last year, Steve was once again paid his traditional one-buck salary. Of course, no one should be crying for Steve's bankbook, seeing as the guy is still on the list of the world's billionaires. Think of it this way: even if the guy has "only" one billion dollars and he's goofy enough to have it all in a basic interest-bearing checking account with a measly annual interest rate of just 0.5%, that would mean the man is still raking in $5 million a year-- just for breathing air. Clearly a man with that kind of spending power isn't running Apple for the paycheck, so it's almost a moot point whether he's pulling down one buck or a million for his CEO duties. (Color us impressed with the man's work ethic; if we were getting paid $9.50 each and every minute we drew breath, we'd be doing as much of our breathing as possible in front of a big, honkin' TV set while wolfing down various snack foods.)

That said, if you were to take a closer look at that dollar bill Steve earned from Apple for fiscal 2001, you might notice something interesting taped to its back-- namely, 7.5 million stock options with an exercise price of $18.30 apiece, making them worth over $43 million as of market close today. Ahhhh, so now we're getting into some serious moolah; heck, with that kind of cash, Steve could stop breathing for over eight full years and still live in the manner to which he's accustomed. (Well, other than that whole "accustomed to inhaling oxygen" thing, but you catch our drift.) Apparently he's only allowed to cash in up to a quarter of those options now, with the rest vesting over the course of the next three years, but even so, $10 mil up front makes for a nifty little bonus on top of that $1 salary.

This has us pondering, actually. Since Billionaire Steve isn't running Apple for the money, does it strike anyone else as perhaps just a smidge fiscally irresponsible for the compensation committee to have tossed him $43 million when he's clearly willing to work just as hard for his one teensy buck? Not that we don't think he deserves it, mind you; we think he's worth every penny. It's just that, at a time when Apple is drawing widespread criticism for raising iMac prices $100 a pop due to rising component prices, we can't help but notice that $43 million (a drop in the money bucket for Steve) would have allowed Apple to keep iMacs steady at their original prices for at least the next three months. And, you know, the man does already have a jet to play with...