Good morning. Executive pay packages are increasingly being reengineered around explicit, measurable performance targets, sometimes including stock price gains.
Take Christy Schwartz, who became Opendoor’s CFO on Jan. 1 after serving as interim CFO, chief accounting officer, and VP of corporate control. Her initial base salary is $1.2 million through May 15, then drops to $500,000 annually, plus a $100,000 sign-on bonus.
But the larger story lies in her long-term incentives. Schwartz received about 1.7 million performance-based stock units, which vest only if Opendoor shares reach $9, $13, $17, $21, $25, $29, or $33 over a 30-day period between April 2026 and October 2030, according to an SEC filing. This ties a substantial portion of her pay directly to the company’s stock performance over several years—a clear reflection of a broader trend toward performance-driven compensation across Opendoor’s leadership.
Riot bets on AI
Riot Platforms is taking a similar approach but with a focus on its evolving business model from a pure-play bitcoin miner into a broader power-and-infrastructure company focused on AI and high-performance computing data centers. There was an update in the pay program disclosed alongside the company’s Jan. 2 announcement that it promoted Jason Chung to CFO, effective March 1.Riot recalibrated its 2026 pay program to better align with the company’s strategic priorities, shifting away from bitcoin-centric compensation. SEC filings reveal that once Riot secures a data center tenant, executive incentives will focus on revenue and net operating income tied to those operations. Specifically, “Data Center Revenue” and “Data Center NOI” will each account for 15% of the annual incentive plan, with payouts ranging from zero to 200% depending on results. At the same time, the adjusted EBITDA metric will drop to 25% weighting. Riot didn’t respond to a request for a comment.
