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Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

money.cnn.com

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Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#81

Post by martinald »

rblatz wrote: post #68

People are all up in arms about headphone jacks, USB-C, and dongles. When the real issue is Apple completely missing huge new markets. Apple had Siri out and was in the lead with voice control, then they wasted it. I never use Siri, she is nearly worthless, but I do use Alexa multiple times a day. Amazon is Leading the voice assistant market, and Google is right on their heels. Home automation was supposed to get bet…

I agree. They seem to be making the same mistake as Microsoft did in the Ballmer years. Yes, they are poking at some new markets, but quite half heartedly and believing their own ecosystem hype too much.

It feels like all the protests about Vista back then. When in reality this was trivial compared to the fact there was virtually nothing exciting coming out from them and they misstepped on huge new markets.

I honestly get the impression they are shocked that people don't love all the new stuff as much as they expected.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#83

Post by coldtea »

ashark wrote: post #75
mpg33 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ports aren't really an issue to me...in a couple of years everything will be USB-C and/or wireless charging/headphones anyway. Big issue is Apple has no new innovative products. Apple Watch isn't really enough of new product to drive iphone like sales at least not yet and there is nothing else on the horizon.

> Ports aren't really an issue to me...in a couple of years everything will be USB-C and/or wireless charging/headphones anyway. Everything new maybe, but old audio gear, monitors/tvs/keyboards/drives, et c stick around a hell of a long time. I'll be surprised if my family's at more than 20% of peripherals, displays, and audio equipment on bluetooth/USBC in 5 years, personally. Probably more like 5-10%. 10 years? Tha…

>Everything new maybe, but old audio gear, monitors/tvs/keyboards/drives, et c stick around a hell of a long time.

That's not much of an issue to the kind of customers that can afford a new expensive Apple laptop.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#84

Post by coldtea »

guelo wrote: post #77
coldtea wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your comments aren't unfair nor even incorrect. However, there is something systemically wrong inside of Apple that those with a gift for "hyperbole" might call total disarray. Yes, but then again, those without a gift for prophecy had called Apple's impeding DOOM several times a year since 2001.

That doesn't mean they'll be wrong forever.

No, a broken clock is also right twice a day.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#85

Post by existencebox »

switchstance wrote: post #12

Personally, I'd hate to have his position. I can't imagine the pressure of trying to fill the shoes of Steve.

People always say this about CEOs, but I'd take that position in an instant. I'd let someone rake hot coals over my face for 100m+ (frankly, for 10m+ as well)

The problem I find is ever climbing that ladder without being in an extremely lucky position. I've had a career track I'm both proud and grateful of, and still see no "feasible" route to ever having even orders of magnitude less than that sort of earning potential short of winning the lottery (real or startup, take your pick.)

I'm sure I'll get the traditional rebuttle of "but CEO's provide some service worth xxxm"/"the job is so much more difficult" but what little research I've found on correlation of executive salary to performance has disagreed, and I'd respond with the somewhat engineer-centric answer that without a CEO, you still have a product. Without your line devs, you have nothing but a talking head.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#86

Post by empthought »

jonknee wrote: post #52
Retric wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would have loved, Sure. Would have done, No.

I don't have a time machine, but why do you think he wouldn't have done the book? He was responsible for the ridiculous 20th Anniversary Mac ($7499 in 1997!): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Anniversary_Macintos... That's a way bigger time/money sink than allowing your designers to put together an art book of Apple products.

Is it, though? It had to have been one of Ive's first projects at Apple, and you can't get good industrial design without putting stuff into the hands of users. Who knows how much collective knowledge and experience Apple internally acquired with that work.

As far as a consumer product or a moneymaker, yeah, it's crap.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#87

Post by eridius »

rblatz wrote: post #68

People are all up in arms about headphone jacks, USB-C, and dongles. When the real issue is Apple completely missing huge new markets. Apple had Siri out and was in the lead with voice control, then they wasted it. I never use Siri, she is nearly worthless, but I do use Alexa multiple times a day. Amazon is Leading the voice assistant market, and Google is right on their heels. Home automation was supposed to get bet…

HomeKit doesn't require a proprietary Apple chip, I have no idea where you got that idea. It just has very high security standards.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#88

Post by chrisabrams »

rblatz wrote: post #68

People are all up in arms about headphone jacks, USB-C, and dongles. When the real issue is Apple completely missing huge new markets. Apple had Siri out and was in the lead with voice control, then they wasted it. I never use Siri, she is nearly worthless, but I do use Alexa multiple times a day. Amazon is Leading the voice assistant market, and Google is right on their heels. Home automation was supposed to get bet…

Steve and the unified vision is gone.

While on winter holidays my fiance pointed out to me:

- She just got a new Macbook Pro from her new job, which has only USB C ports

- She just got a new iPhone 7 from her new job, which is only a Lightning port

She cannot connect her phone to her computer to charge without a dongle. EDIT: a Lightning to USB C cable does exist now. That is still equivalent to a dongle in my opinion, as the consumer still has to buy it and it is a cable that won't be used for anything else.

She has to carry two sets of headphones, one for her computer, and one for her phone.

The unified vision at Apple is gone.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#89

Post by user837387 »

hcoyote wrote: post #38
pducks32 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a hobby project that keeps designers feel valued and most companies do it. Some release it, some don't. But they all do it.

Honestly, this cost is on par with other book-based photographic collections from small, bespoke printing companies (Such as Lodima Press). The real question is how many copies did they run. This will determine whether or not the cost is justified for the value you get from it. As an example, a few years ago, I purchased a copy of Edward Weston's "Life Work" from Lodima when it was released. I think I paid ~$150 for…

>>If Apple printed thousands and thousands of these, then I doubt the cost is justified. But if it was a limited run, say less than a few thousand? Seems appropriate to me.

What bothers me out of this discussion is that people are getting upset about the price they choose to sell the book at. People feel way too entitled. They could sell it at a million bucks each and if people were willing to pay that then why would anybody complain. Unless you feel you somehow have a God given right to decide how people sell their own products.

Re: Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

#90

Post by ChuckMcM »

Like others I don't shed a lot of tears when an exec makes only 89% of their multi-million dollar target bonus :-) I asked an exec at Oracle once about how it was even motivating. For much of my career I've had some sort of bonus associated with my salary, at Sun, NetApp, Google all had bonus programs (with different tweaks). And for an engineer it could be a huge thing. At Google with all the multipliers in place you could get your entire salary paid again in just bonus money if you were a superstar. For an engineer that can be hugely motivating because they need their salary to live on, so bonus money is "extra".

But when you're an executive and the different in bonus is $8M vs $5M? Sure its a huge number that you didn't get an extra three million dollars but what can you do differently with $8M that you can't do with $5M? So my question to the Oracle exec was "Does it really motivate you to work harder, smarter, etc if the difference between hitting it out of the park and not doing so has no impact on your lifestyle?" And his answer was that most of the people that he worked with were "score" motivated, it wasn't the money it was that they had a bigger score than their competitive exec.

I'm not sure I really believe that. I mean could Oracle just have Brownie Points as their bonus metric and still get the same performance effort? But it really did surprise me that the number was important even though the effect of the number on their lifestyle was probably not noticeable.

I think Tim needs to avoid being painted like Steve Ballmer, an exec that led Microsoft to higher growth, profit, and sales, and into the swamp. And for that reason, not the size of his bonus this year, he needs to pay attention to the changing forces in the market.

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