Joshua Isner
What a wonderful year it has been for Axon. Every quarterly earnings report seems to come with it blockbuster financials, with massive revenue, huge profits, and a skyrocketing stock price. Everything seems to be going wonderfully for the company, even as it threatens and bullies the city of Scottsdale to get everything it wants (read the whole story here).
How could it possibly get better for the company? We recently learned that Axon President Joshua Isner was the highest paid executive in Arizona! Last year he brought in nearly $31.5 MILLION in total compensation, outpacing executives from such Arizona corporate staples as GoDaddy and Freeport McMoran.
And you know what? Good for Mr. Isner! Granted, it comes with the price of the collective misery of Scottsdale. While this massive payout was happening, Axon continues to attempt to shoehorn nearly 2,000 unwanted apartment units in Scottsdale, threatening to upend the character of the area and make life miserable for residents with a massive dump of population density and corresponding traffic, all without even attempting to listen to the people impacted.
Again, good for Mr. Isner! Even though the company (spearheaded by Mr. Isner himself, reportedly) is threatening to move their headquarters away from the city that has facilitated its unprecedented success unless they get their way, threatening to run away from home if it doesn’t get what it wants like a petulant teenager. While the company napalms every bridge it has built with stakeholders boh in the city and City Hall, Mr. Isner is doing incredibly well financially.
Hopefully it is obvious, but in case you were wondering, yes…this is sarcasm. It is an outrage that Axon continues to hold the city hostage with its ridiculous plans and threaten us with a move while it is doing so incredibly well financially, while it is able to dole out such lavish pay packages. Scottsdale has been EXTREMELY good to it, and it refuses to pay the favor back.
All Axon has to do is let go of its absurd plans, and this would be a story of a local company done well. Instead, it reeks of being a spoiled bully, demanding more while giving less, seeing its home as something to use as leverage instead of a stakeholder. And it’s entirely unacceptable.