After so long, a rare moment of tech exec sanity: Bloomberg reports Oracle's board rejected its yacht-cheating, island-owning CEO's salary. Shareholders say Larry's not doing his job well enough, so he'll just have to get by with tens of millions of dollars a year.

The real question is why a man worth $40 billion, frequently photographed holding novelty-sized champagne bottles or trophies, deserves any salary at all, with more money than he'd be able to spend in a hundred lifetimes. What possible incentive does he have to do anything? None! Other than pride and determination, which presumably would be there with or without a paycheck. But this is a good start:

Oracle Corp. shareholders rejected the pay packages of Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison and other executives, hewing to the recommendation by an influential proxy adviser that said their compensation is out of sync with the company's performance.

And, the poor guy, Ellison's pay was already reduced this year!

His pay package declined 18 percent to $78.4 million for fiscal 2013 after he gave up an annual bonus and the company missed some of its profit targets. Last month, Oracle gave a weaker-than-projected profit forecast for the current quarter.

CtW wants Oracle to appoint a new director to oversee pay, and opposes the use of stock options to pay Ellison and other executives. Ellison owned 24.4 percent of Oracle shares as of Oct. 3, making a vote against directors and the pay plan more challenging.

Man. Even with a stranglehold over Oracle's corporate voting structure, Larry Ellison still couldn't push his bloated compensation package through. Sort of like being a gazillionaire and still not being able to win a sailing race without cheating.

Photo: Getty