Who are you? No, really... who are you? 

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Ben Cohen and Chuck Lacy used to have a policy that no employee's pay would exceed five times that of entry-level employees. When Cohen resigned as Chief Executive Officer and the company began its search for a new CEO in 1995, the historic five-to-one-ratio policy .

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From top to bottom, the pay ratio between the highest salaried executive and lowest-earning-worker would be no greater than 5 to 1.

To their credit, the ice cream kings kept to their pay scale deal for 16 years. At that point, Cohen was set to retire and no successor who was willing to accept B&J's compensation compact could be found.

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End of an Era: So the bar was raised to 7 to 1 to attract new talent, and ultimately to 17 to 1 over the course of a half dozen years more. The company was then acquired by Unilever USA in 2000, after which the corporate cone of silence descended on what was once a very transparent practice.