GAIA INC

Our compensation committee believes that compensation paid to executive officers and other members of our senior management should be closely aligned with our performance on both a short-term and a long-term basis, and that such compensation should assist us in attracting and retaining talented persons who are committed to our mission and critical to our long-term success. To that end, our compensation committee believes that the compensation packages for executive officers should consist of three principal components:

We have selected these elements because each is considered useful and/or necessary to meet one or more of the principal objectives of our compensation policy. For instance, base salary and bonus target percentages are set with the goal of attracting employees and adequately compensating and rewarding them on a day-to-day basis for the services they perform and for achieving short-term business objectives, while our equity programs are geared toward providing an incentive and reward for the achievement of long-term business objectives and retaining key talent. We believe that these elements of compensation, when combined, are effective, and will continue to be effective, in achieving the objectives of our compensation program.

Our compensation committee believes in the importance of equity ownership for all executive officers and a broader-based segment of our work force, for purposes of economic incentive, key employee retention and alignment of employees’ interests with those of shareholders. Our compensation committee believes that the Gaia, Inc. 2019 Long-Term Incentive Plan provides valuable flexibility to achieve a balance between providing equity-based compensation for employees and creating and maintaining long-term shareholder value.

Restricted stock unit awards are typically made when a new executive officer is hired, and in determining the size of restricted stock unit awards, our compensation committee bases its determinations on such subjective considerations as the individual’s position within management, experience, the market value of the executive’s skill set, and historical grant amounts to similarly positioned executives of our company. Since 2017, we have not granted stock options as we shifted to restricted stock unit awards. Our historical policy was that the exercise price of a stock option grant shall be equal to or greater than the closing price of the Class A common stock on the date of grant and, accordingly, will have value only if the market price of the Class A common stock increases after that date. The stock options granted pursuant to the Gaia, Inc. 2019 Long-Term Incentive Plan generally vest at 2% per month during the 11th through 60th month after the date of grant with respect to the first option grant awarded to an individual, and generally vest at 2% per month beginning in the first full month after the date of grant with respect to subsequent option grants. The restricted stock units granted pursuant to the Gaia, Inc. 2019 Long-Term Incentive Plan, as well as those previously granted pursuant to the Gaia, Inc. 2009 Long-Term Incentive Plan, generally vest on a specific date approximately five years from the date of grant.

Our compensation committee reviews our compensation program on an annual basis. In setting compensation levels for a particular executive, our compensation committee takes into consideration the proposed compensation package as a whole and each element individually, but does not apply any specific formula in doing so. While the importance of one compensation element to another may vary among executive officers, our compensation committee attempts to correlate the overall compensation package to each executive officer’s past and expected future contributions to our business. We currently do not have any employment agreements with our executive officers or other agreements to make payments to our executive officers upon their termination or a change-in-control.