A fellow Northfielder who also happens to work where I used to work pointed out that Stephen Shank, the CEO of my former/his current employer, Capella University, has done quite well since the company went public last year. According to the Star Tribune, Shank was the ninth best-paid CEO in Minnesota in 2007, clearing $11,148,000 (mostly by exercising stock options) - a 2,574% uptick from the $417,000 he earned in 2006 (and ranked only 96th).
Given that Shank (whom I worked with a bit when I was there, and always found to be a very nice guy) has spent a decade building Capella, I won't begrudge him his money - after all, I exercised my options last year and took home 0.07% of what he did. I am, however, as pathetically satisfied as a lapsed business historian could be to see proven my claim, back when I worked at Capella, that the university's real product and customers weren't the online degrees it was selling to every Tom, Dick, and Henrietta who could pay the admission fee, but the university itself and the investors who were eager to buy a few thousand shares. Caveat emptor.