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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

#201

Post by chrisabrams »

lachm wrote: post #196
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow how this is an example of what you conclude. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we never been able to connect iPhone's to computers without a special cable. It's baffling, but not new.

Sure 30-pin and Lightning to USB-A cables are both "special." But in the past users have been able to connect the phone to the current MacBook lineup out of the box. Now users of the current MacBook lineup have to buy a new Lightning to USB Type-C cable as it is not included. It is certainly an example of disunity among their product lineup.

Thank you, this is exactly what I meant.

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

#202

Post by Retric »

jonknee wrote: post #106
Retric wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not the book, the problem is the pricing for the book which he had nothing to do with. At 30$ or 300$ the company is not going to get meaningful revenue, or likely enough to pay the cost of production back. So, the pricing needs to relate to something else.

The point of the book wasn't to juice the "Other revenue" line in their quarterly report, it was to produce a high-end art book of their design work. It actually makes more sense as a high dollar item considering that allows it to be made with high quality materials and become a collectors item. At $30 it would probably be junk, uninteresting to collectors/designers and the mass market alike.

The argument is they could use the same materials and sell it for 30$. At 300$ they are already going to be out millions. So, the difference in price is just not going to be meaningful until they start selling 30,000+ copies.

The bugatti veyron for example sells for ~$1.5 million, but it costs more than twice that to make ($6.25 million). However, as VW only sold ~50 veyron's per year it's was just not an issue for VW compared to the 10.14 million cars they sold per year.

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

#203

Post by [deleted] »

aetherson wrote: post #79
liveify wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. Very few people outside of HN and r/apple that I have talked to have negative opinions of what Apple is doing. I see no evidence that Apple's products are becoming less popular. The iPhone is still the go to smartphone that I would recommend to anyone. I have switched back and forth between iPhone and Android since they came out, but I would never recommend an Android phone to a casual user. If th…

You don't think that declining sales and revenues are evidence that Apple's products are becoming less popular?

[deleted]

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

#204

Post by Oompa »

sfilargi wrote: post #172
pducks32 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone I talk to in person loves their new MacBook Pro. They say it's their favorite MacBook ever.

How are they dealing with the absence of the 'Esc' key? Is it annoying to have the soft key or hardly noticeable?

Its weird, I never missed the key when I hit it but it always felt strange due to lack of feedback. I ended up binding Capslock to Escape and training myself to use that instead. Now I don't care at all.

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

#205

Post by chrisabrams »

jsmith0295 wrote: post #174
mtw wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unified vision was nice. What interested me first in the Apple ecosystem was its use by high-end pros. Photographers, creatives, filmmakers. Then they announced MacOS X, built upon NeXT/BSD, and the mac pro products. Now Microsoft has dedicated products for high-end creatives (Surface studio won't sell but still shows interest in pros), Linux Bash shell in windows 10. Meanwhile Apple wants pros to use a 9" tablet ins…

Surface Studio is actually selling at 2x what Microsoft anticipated it selling for, so it seems to be a bigger market than one would think.

The quality of the current line of surfaces is pretty good. A few friends who have needed a replacement computer/laptop but need to use Windows for work have opted for the Surface. Gives them nice portability and they don't really need an iPad (or can't afford a laptop and iPad).

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

#206

Post by ryanSrich »

qyv wrote: post #122
mtw wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unified vision was nice. What interested me first in the Apple ecosystem was its use by high-end pros. Photographers, creatives, filmmakers. Then they announced MacOS X, built upon NeXT/BSD, and the mac pro products. Now Microsoft has dedicated products for high-end creatives (Surface studio won't sell but still shows interest in pros), Linux Bash shell in windows 10. Meanwhile Apple wants pros to use a 9" tablet ins…

If 2017 turns out to be the year the VR starts to hit the main stream, which it could be, it will be interesting to see what Apple's response will be.

VR has a massive hurdle to get over. You can't expect people to drop $600 on a headset _and_ (at least) $1k on a machine that can run it.

Costs will come down, but 2017 won't be the year. I expect VR to grow, but only in the gaming market.

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

#207

Post by [deleted] »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #178
roymurdock wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since it is impossible to give a precise estimate of each manager's contribution to the firm's output, it is inevitable that this process yields decisions that are largely arbitrary and dependent on hierarchical relationships and on the relative bargaining power of the individuals involved. It is only reasonable to assume that people in a position to set their own salaries have a natural incentive to treat themselves…

I largely disagree with Piketty in this case. There are metrics which are available to management which provide the specific insights needed to drive compensation to the most appropriate individuals. I do not disagree that there management systems which ignore those metrics and base their compensation on relationships. I agree with the basic thesis that as the productivity of workers (as measured by $ generated per w…

[deleted]

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

#208

Post by cymbalrush »

karyon wrote: post #138
ChuckMcM wrote: post #90

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 yo…

This sounds a bit like "my income is normal, and everyone above that is rich"-thinking that a lot of people have.(if there's a word for that i'd appreciate any hints :) ) i'd definitely consider engineers at google to be rich and don't see how another 200k makes that much of a difference. you think these execs are rich and don't see how another million makes a difference. and the execs consider billionaires to be ric…

It was $75K https://www.princeton.edu/~deaton/downloads/deaton_kahneman_...

Happiness does not grow linearly with salary and happiness is what you ultimately want to maximize. Income is only one input, and as it grows, it can actually complicate your life decreasing your happiness.

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

#209

Post by rkapsoro »

roymurdock wrote: post #142
ChuckMcM wrote: post #90

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 yo…

Since it is impossible to give a precise estimate of each manager's contribution to the firm's output, it is inevitable that this process yields decisions that are largely arbitrary and dependent on hierarchical relationships and on the relative bargaining power of the individuals involved. It is only reasonable to assume that people in a position to set their own salaries have a natural incentive to treat themselves…

I'd also like to disagree with Piketty here.

It is very difficult to give a precise estimate of the value of Tim Cook's contribution to Apple, or indeed what it might be at any other firm. Competitive markets do not need (and often must not) rely on comprehensive estimate analysis pricing to determine the value of something to the parties making the exchange. This is why they were much more successful than totalitarian central planning: central planners found themselves forced to try costing out all prices in terms of their complete component parts and recursing ad nauseam, rapidly running into limited knowledge issues. Instead, I find the more Hayekian analysis of prices emerging through human behaviour on voluntary transactions much more compelling.

While Piketty is right to mention that the market is embodied in specific institutions and that no market exists in pure isolation from institutional dynamics, these different institutions do exert competitive pressure on one another.

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

#210

Post by deelowe »

no_gravity wrote: post #167
chrisabrams wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 opinio…

Is there no Lightning to USB C cable?

Buy an iphone. Buy a macbook. Now try to connect the two. That's what he meant. It's possible with additional accessories, but that's not the point.
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