Pay Check: Are Top Earners Really Worth It?

Who deserves what they earn? Seldom has this question been more relevant than now, as senior executives grab outrageous salaries while the companies they manage go bankrupt, and British parliamentarians fiddle their expenses. From jargon-spouting consultants to the financial "whiz kids" undertaking risky deals, oversized pay packets are justified on the flimsiest of grounds - that the recipients possess extraordinary talent without which no company or organisation could prosper. But the evidence suggests otherwise. This book explodes the myth of "talent", and shows how the term has been deliberately misused and abused. Pay Check aims to win capitalism back for those who actually take the risks, and expose those who merely snatch the rewards.
"This is a thoughtful, persuasive and well-written book. It is a timely and powerful contribution to the debate about the corrosive effects of the banking bonus culture. I commend Mr Bolchover's work to anyone who cares about the future of capitalism."
- Luke Johnson, Financial Times columnist and Entrepreneur.

"There is, in my view, no better writer on the modern workplace than David Bolchover. With this book he has done it again. He has asked one of the questions that really matter."
- Daniel Finkelstein, The Times.

"Pay Check is a bold and impassioned book, rich in wry humour, thoughtfully argued throughout...highly persuasive...the starting-point for a worthy and necessary discussion about the nature of "talent"." --The Economist"The answer and the solution (to excessive pay) lie in an excellent book by the business writer David Bolchover called Pay Check." Johann Hari, GQ Magazine / The Huffington Post
"[Bolchover's] criticisms of the way top pay is handled crisply and with good use of data. Many of the hand grenades he throws hit their targets. He is withering about the clichéd term "talent", which is used to justify excessive pay." Financial Times / Los Angeles Times

"a great little book" --Merryn Somerset Webb, Editor, MoneyWeek

"A must read for anyone interested in the topic." --Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice, London Business School