Meet the top execs of the hottest US tech companies. Here’s what they earn

Tim Cook is Silicon Valley’s highest paid CEO, but you already knew that. What do other high profile execs earn?

Personal finance and credit service comparison company, NerdWallet, created a tool that shows the compensation of the highest paid executive for each of the S&P 500 companies. We delved into the data for 2011 and ranked the highest earners for some of the more well known US tech companies.

Perhaps, like us you are simply curious, but there are some interesting things to note. Compare Tim Cook’s salary to that of Amazon.com’s CEO, Jeff Bezos. Microsoft’s highest paid employee? Nope, it’s not Steve Ballmer. IBM pays almost as well as Facebook, and if you’ve ever debated whether or not Open Source pays, have a look at what Red Hat Inc’s CEO earns.

NerdWallet notes some interesting statistics. In 2011, the average compensation of S&P 500 executives was US$13 375 474. That’s 393 times the average pay of U.S. workers, which was US$34 053 for 2011. If you’re interested in how gender plays a role in compensation among S&P 500 companies, check out NerdWallet’s study. Apparently the median female CEO pay was 13% greater than median male pay, but women were compensated only US$13 005 per million of their company’s pre-tax earnings, while men receive US$15 935.

Alright, without further ado, here we go.

1. Apple Inc

Name: Timothy D. Cook
Position: CEO
Salary: US$377 996 537

2. Google Inc

Name: Eric E. Schmidt
Position: Chairman; Former CEO
Salary: US$100 980 262

3. Oracle Corp

Name: Lawrence J. Ellison
Position: CEO
Salary: US$77 556 015

4. IBM Corp

Name: Samuel J. Palmisano
Position: Chairman, President and CEO
Salary: US$31 798 918

5. Facebook

Name: Sheryl K. Sandberg
Position: Chief Operating Officer
Salary: US$30 873 579

6. Motorola Solutions, Inc

Name: Gregory Q. Brown
Position: Chairman and CEO
Salary: US$29 329 052

7. Qualcomm Inc

Name: Paul E. Jacobs
Position: Chairman and CEO
Salary: US$21 722 333

8. Salesforce.com

Name: Marc Benioff
Position: CEO and Chairman
Salary: US$17 714 306

9. Intel Corp

Name: Paul S. Otellini
Position: President and CEO
Salary: US$17 491 900

10. Hewlett-Packard Co

Name: Margaret C. Whitman
Position: President and CEO
Salary: US$16 518 930

11. eBay Inc

Name: John J. Donahoe
Position: President & CEO
Salary: US$16 456 528

12. Yahoo Inc

Name: Carol Bartz
Position: Former CEO
Salary: US$16 369 535

13. Dell Inc

Name: Michael S. Dell
Position: Chairman & CEO
Salary: US$16 138 498

14. AMD

Name: Rory P. Read
Position: President and CEO
Salary: US$15 610 351

15. Texas Instruments Inc

Name: Richard K. Templeton
Position: Chairman, President and CEO
Salary: US$14 055 767

16. Xerox Corp

Name: Ursula M. Burns
Position: Chairman & CEO
Salary: US$12 902 607

17. Cisco Systems Inc

Name: John T. Chambers
Position: Chairman and CEO
Salary: US$12 886 125

18. SanDisk Corp

Name: Sanjay Mehrotra
Position: President & CEO
Salary: US$12 167 844

19. Akamai Technologies Inc

Name: Paul Sagan
Position: President and CEO
Salary: US$11 876 747

20. Adobe Systems Inc

Name: Shantanu Narayen
Position: President and CEO
Salary: US$10 825 110

21. Netflix Inc

Name: Reed Hastings
Position: CEO, President, and Chairman
Salary: US$9 289 046

22. Electronic Arts

Name: Frank D. Gibeau
Position: President
Salary: US$9 797 357

23. Microsoft Corp

Name: B. Kevin Turner
Position: Chief Operating Officer
Salary: US$9 277 141

24. Expedia

Name: Barry Diller
Position: Chairman and CEO
Salary: US$9 149 554

25. Symantec Corp

Name: Enrique Salem
Position: President and CEO
Salary: US$8 509 683

26. Red Hat Inc

Name: James M. Whitehurst
Position: President and CEO
Salary: US$7 757 046

27. Western Digital Corp

Name: John F. Coyne
Position: President & CEO
Salary: US$7 007 774

28. Nvidia Corp

Name: Jen-Hsun Huang
Position: CEO and President
Salary: US$6 642 422

29. VeriSign Inc

Name: Mark D. McLaughlin
Position: Former President and CEO
Salary: US$5 154 481

30. TripAdvisor Inc

Name: Stephen Kaufer
Position: President & CEO
Salary: US$4 189 691

31. Amazon.com Inc

Name: Jeffrey P. Bezos
Position: CEO
Salary: US$1 681 840