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Apple Is the New Pimco

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Re: Apple Is the New Pimco

#91

Post by soperj »

coldtea wrote: post #90
sytelus wrote: post #88

It boggles my mind that Apple isn't using all these money for something better. What prevents them from, say, hiring up or luring away all the great CS/hardware PhDs, build a giant lab for robotics, build new space exploration company, new sustainable for-profit tech company, start massive search engine efforts, start giant initiative for for-profit cancer research and so on and on and on. There are endless challenge…

> It boggles my mind that Apple isn't using all these money for something better. What prevents them from, say, hiring up or luring away all the great CS/hardware PhDs, build a giant lab for robotics, build new space exploration company, new sustainable for-profit tech company, start massive search engine efforts, start giant initiative for for-profit cancer research and so on and on and on. That they know that money…

Google did well being all over the place as well... Youtube, maps, gmail, android, chrome. If they'd just stuck to search, where would they be now? And for that matter, where would we be now?

Re: Apple Is the New Pimco

#92

Post by sk5t »

sz4kerto wrote: post #65
larrys wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Steve Cohen at SAC was famous for overpaying on commissions " After a real estate deal last year I bought the broker a gift and delivered it. He said "wow shouldn't I be buying you the gift?". No problem because the next time I was the person he called first when he got a fresh listing on a commercial investment property which I was able to buy at a much lower price per sf than if he had actually taken the effort to…

> In this context a small gift (what I am describing) also isn't necessarily a bribe. It absolutely is, exactly because it has an effect. Another post here says that 'the broker's behavior seems to be on thin ethical ice here' -- no, there's no ice whatsoever. This behaviour is outside of the ethical (and regulatory!) standards.

Gifts of nominal value are allowed--to give and to accept them--in the ethical system of every Western business of which I am aware. Saying "thank you" and making small talk also have an effect... adding a token of trivial value to the equation isn't a poison pill.

Re: Apple Is the New Pimco

#93

Post by tanderson92 »

mahyarm wrote: post #89
tanderson92 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Think of multinational corporations as multinational families, each one with their own singular citizenship. Why should I? Of course this is not actually what they are, or at least what they claim to be. That is, since money is fungible in a global economy they can in effect use untaxed funds to influence U.S. political campaigns while they claim they are a single person deserving of the same rights afforded by the…

What you describe is something any rich lower-taxed non-american can do to the usa effectively. That is a thing of money, not of corporations.

> rich lower-taxed non-american

Right, but of course being as many of the companies in question here were founded in the U.S. and made use of U.S. infrastructure to build their business, and are headquartered in the U.S., and rely on the U.S. labor force for a large part of their enterprise, it isn't accurate to call them non-american.

Re: Apple Is the New Pimco

#94

Post by coldtea »

soperj wrote: post #91
coldtea wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It boggles my mind that Apple isn't using all these money for something better. What prevents them from, say, hiring up or luring away all the great CS/hardware PhDs, build a giant lab for robotics, build new space exploration company, new sustainable for-profit tech company, start massive search engine efforts, start giant initiative for for-profit cancer research and so on and on and on. That they know that money…

Google did well being all over the place as well... Youtube, maps, gmail, android, chrome. If they'd just stuck to search, where would they be now? And for that matter, where would we be now?

Youtube and Maps were acquired, not Google projects. So they got something that worked already, instead of just throwing money to come up with something (which seldom worked for them outside of Search and Mail).

Android was Google's (though that was acquired too IIRC, albeit in a much different form), but while a market favorite, it's not a profit source for Google and it's also losing control of it (with Samsung, Amazon etc spinning their own versions). Even for mobile ads, most of Google's revenue comes from iOS devices.

>If they'd just stuck to search, where would they be now?

Mostly where they are, revenue wise.

Re: Apple Is the New Pimco

#95

Post by gitah »

sytelus wrote: post #88

It boggles my mind that Apple isn't using all these money for something better. What prevents them from, say, hiring up or luring away all the great CS/hardware PhDs, build a giant lab for robotics, build new space exploration company, new sustainable for-profit tech company, start massive search engine efforts, start giant initiative for for-profit cancer research and so on and on and on. There are endless challenge…

The reason is Wall street. If Tim Cook invests heavily in R&D, earnings will tank and then activist investors will replace him to boost dividends and buy backs.

Google can get away with this as the CEO has a lot of credibility and also class B voting shares.

Re: Apple Is the New Pimco

#96

Post by icelancer »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #63
oldmanjay wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the government could confiscate a hundred billion and use it to invade a small country for a few weeks. I'm not going to put down your imagination but it didn't take me long to think of a worse use.

I was thinking today that Apple could plow that money into Solar City's SolarBonds [1]. Short maturity dates are available, so they'd be getting their capital back quickly, its a safe investment, and it both helps their image and the environment. https://solarbonds.solarcity.com/

> its a safe investment

Anything that returns more money than treasury bills at the same maturity date is de facto not "safe."

Re: Apple Is the New Pimco

#97

Post by marincounty »

tdees40 wrote: post #32
adam419 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Apple et al can put the extra capital to better use than the united states government.

Apple appears to be terrible at deploying capital. Most of it is just sitting around in cash. It's actually hard to imagine a worse allocator of capital.

I sometimes wonder if Apple knows more about investing than they let on? They obviously care about money. Why would they let billions sit around in cash? I won't even speculate, but here's a graph of their horde of cash and when we gave it to them. Yes, I said we(the world of course). (Don't want to offend anyone concerning Apple.)

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/22/charting-apples-growing-s...

Re: Apple Is the New Pimco

#98

Post by wodenokoto »

coldtea wrote: post #94
soperj wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google did well being all over the place as well... Youtube, maps, gmail, android, chrome. If they'd just stuck to search, where would they be now? And for that matter, where would we be now?

Youtube and Maps were acquired, not Google projects. So they got something that worked already, instead of just throwing money to come up with something (which seldom worked for them outside of Search and Mail). Android was Google's (though that was acquired too IIRC, albeit in a much different form), but while a market favorite, it's not a profit source for Google and it's also losing control of it (with Samsung, Am…

Depends on how you define a profit source. The main purpose of Android was to get people to look at Google ads on their cellphones.

They were very clear about this when they announced Android as free and open source.

Re: Apple Is the New Pimco

#99

Post by Htsthbjig »

sytelus wrote: post #88

It boggles my mind that Apple isn't using all these money for something better. What prevents them from, say, hiring up or luring away all the great CS/hardware PhDs, build a giant lab for robotics, build new space exploration company, new sustainable for-profit tech company, start massive search engine efforts, start giant initiative for for-profit cancer research and so on and on and on. There are endless challenge…

"It boggles my mind that Apple isn't using all these money for something better. What prevents them from, say, hiring up or luring away all the great CS/hardware PhDs, build a giant lab for robotics, build new space exploration company, new sustainable for-profit tech company, start massive search engine efforts, start giant initiative for for-profit cancer research and so on and on and on."

And what do you think Apple is exactly doing?

My company have worked for them in the industrial side and let me tell you this strait: Apple could afford what nobody does, and they do.

You have never wondered why Apple is the one along three manufacturers(Samsung and Microsoft) that could create aluminum computers and not cheap plastic ones?.

The answer is billions invested in manufacturing plants. Apple always gets the best electronic components first because of being, for example, the biggest user of lithium batteries in the world(and the electronics that control it). They have a tremendous negotiation power and routinely screws one or two turns over manufacturers because they can.

Apple designs their own hardware at chip level, they are working on cars, like Google.

They park their money in debt instruments while doing the above like any other company does for getting liquidity.

"Apple can really put the world 50 years ahead in tech if they chose to invest the money in these areas."

I don't believe you understand the meaning of diminishing returns.

If you have more sex with a woman you don't have kids faster than 9 months.

When Microsoft competed against mosaic browser, Mosaic had like 20 employees or so, Netscape like 100, and Microsoft used like 2000. Microsoft browser did not get 20 times faster than Netscape.

Re: Apple Is the New Pimco

#100

Post by lmm »

devmach wrote: post #52
jfuhrman wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So the question is, if a country (like Spain or Greece) >If, say, European Union provides better shield, would Apple move its HQ to Germany or Spain? Two words. Labor laws. http://www.businessinsider.com/ceo-employee-lawsuits-killed-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9663421

Good point. But I would like to know other side of the story too, not just from the CEO. Although, while I'm not an expert on France's labor laws, I agree laws in most EU countries are on the side of employees. But that doesn't mean when you hired someone, he/she will be working at the company for rest of his/her life without doing some work. Maybe someone who's expert on labor laws can clarify. Edit: Also different…

> Although, while I'm not an expert on France's labor laws, I agree laws in most EU countries are on the side of employees. But that doesn't mean when you hired someone, he/she will be working at the company for rest of his/her life without doing some work. Maybe someone who's expert on labor laws can clarify.

As someone who lives and works in the EU, none of the conditions seems to be particularly unreasonable. If you're talking about someone who isn't working, presumably you'd be firing them for cause. Which you can do: you need to follow a process and document that you're following it, you need to give them explicit warning that their performance is not up to par and give them the opportunity to fix it, and you need to do all of this within a reasonable timeframe.

The Mandriva guy was explicitly not doing that; if you're making people redundant then you're declaring that there was no problem with them specifically, the company just needs to eliminate those positions. If you then rehire people for those positions within the next few months, the courts tend to take a rather dim view of that.

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