What Board Directors Get Paid: S&P 500 Average ~$320K — the Basis of the $1,300 Director-Hour

Diligent's board compensation guide reports S&P 500 directors average approximately $321K in total annual compensation (cash + equity); private company and startup boards pay less (median in-person meeting fee $2,500). Combined with the commonly used ~250 hours-per-year director time commitment benchmark, this yields roughly $1,300 per director-hour — so a typical 10-seat listed board consumes $13,000+ per meeting-hour in director fees alone, before executive and presenter time. Derived arithmetic used in the Summer 2026 workshop to price the boardroom hour; flag the derivation as calculation, not a published statistic.