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Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout

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Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout

#121

So according to this 2018 article by The Verge [1], Foxconn workers producing iGadgets in China earn on average $390.16 per month. Times that by twelve and we find that workers earn $4,681.92 per year on average. If we divide Tim's $750,000,000 bonus/payout this year by that $4,681.92 yearly Foxconn salary, we get 160,190 My question is: how is Tim so productive that he does roughly 160,000 people’s work, or 1/8th of…

Tim Cook can pay the Chinese workers rounding errors on his net worth because they and the other workers able to do similar work are not organized. They have no power. They can't ask for better working condition and better salary.

Also, he really cares about making money, so since the workers have no power, why give them anything else than the minimum and get yourself the maximum?

Who cares about some random oversea workers? Their problem, not mine. /s

Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout

#123
post #90

So according to this 2018 article by The Verge [1], Foxconn workers producing iGadgets in China earn on average $390.16 per month. Times that by twelve and we find that workers earn $4,681.92 per year on average. If we divide Tim's $750,000,000 bonus/payout this year by that $4,681.92 yearly Foxconn salary, we get 160,190 My question is: how is Tim so productive that he does roughly 160,000 people’s work, or 1/8th of…

Sorry, but your question is something I would expect a kid to ask the first time they become aware of inequality. Compassionate but extremely basic. The problem obviously can't be distilled to such a simple and shallow question.

imagine how many potential Tim Cooks are among those workers who can't ever become Tim Cooks due to their circumstances

Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout

#124
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My question is: how is Tim so productive that he does roughly 160,000 people’s work, or 1/8th of Foxconn’s total workforce? [2] /s Nobody has been making these productivity claims to begin with, but leftists commonly use productivity vs salary to ridicule CEO compensation. CEOs are paid for numerous reasons, for example board wants to trust the person with billions worth of assets which makes it sensible to pay cer…

You are justifying someone being paid $750m. No one needs that much money. No one. Why are you defending this? It's obscene. Really reminds me of this https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/147/150/e2c...

People are not paid based on what they need, they're paid based on value they provide (and other things, like how difficult they are to replace).

Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout

#125

So according to this 2018 article by The Verge [1], Foxconn workers producing iGadgets in China earn on average $390.16 per month. Times that by twelve and we find that workers earn $4,681.92 per year on average. If we divide Tim's $750,000,000 bonus/payout this year by that $4,681.92 yearly Foxconn salary, we get 160,190 My question is: how is Tim so productive that he does roughly 160,000 people’s work, or 1/8th of…

When will we learn to stop making these silly calculations about "productivity" and understand that people are paid not by the value of their work, but by their scarcity? Any factory in China can replace most of their 160k employees overnight if they wanted to. How many Tim Cook's do you have lying around?

the scarcity is the role not the person filling it

Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout

#126
post #35

> In 2015, Mr Cook said he would give away his entire fortune before he dies, and is known to have donated tens of millions of dollars to charity. I'm normally a proponent of reducing income inequality. But this has got me thinking. Is the world actively better off when billionaires like Cook/Gates/Buffett make a ton of money. Consider the alternative: someone in the 75th percentile of USA income gets a fat raise. Mo…

Option A) The money is taxed and spent on HIV research.

Option B) He retires and (maybe) gives it to support HIV research.

So the question is, interest and efficiency.

It's possible in may situations for charitable giving to have greater efficiency, by leveraging the knowledge of the investor, directing the money towards really effective outcomes. Or not. Then there is the public interest.

Option C) Reduce the market power of monopolizing entities, in which case instead of gigantic profits accumulating in specific centres, you have workers, suppliers and consumers getting a better deal across the board i.e. Foxconn staff having more income, consumers getting better prices etc..

I like Option C.

I like Option B when there's effective leadership.

I like Option A when governments are really smart with their investment or redistribution.

Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout

#127
post #3

I thought that CEOs of American companies were legally required to maximize profit. Reducing Cook's salary sure whould increase profits.

You have to pay for talent. How many people in the world have the talent to run a $2.4 trillion company effectively.

We have absolutely no idea since only a truly tiny fraction will ever have the chance to try.

Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout

#128

So according to this 2018 article by The Verge [1], Foxconn workers producing iGadgets in China earn on average $390.16 per month. Times that by twelve and we find that workers earn $4,681.92 per year on average. If we divide Tim's $750,000,000 bonus/payout this year by that $4,681.92 yearly Foxconn salary, we get 160,190 My question is: how is Tim so productive that he does roughly 160,000 people’s work, or 1/8th of…

Most of the comments are focusing on your salary comparisons, and while I do think it's not quite as simple as what you've laid out (we know how capitalism and its reward structures work), the wider and much more important point I take from your comment is about how workers in these overseas factories are treated generally, not necessarily just about what they're paid.

There clearly IS a problem here. It's not just Apple and it's not just corporations, we all (in the West) have to take a bit of responsibility around this.

So for everyone disagreeing with you, I do think you raise/{remind us of} some important ethical issues that do need ongoing and open discussion.

Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout

#129
post #92
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the last 5 years Tim Cook has created $1900 b in shareholder value. That's just obviously not the case unless Tim is the only person working at Apple. All employees contributed that and it's perfectly reasonable to discuss how these rewards should be distributed, even if they should be distributed to shareholders at all.

No matter how you look at it, a CEO that earns less than 0.1% of the shareholder value created under his watch can’t reasonably be called overpaid.

It depends entirely if he's actually responsible for that created value. Maybe he didn't actually do anything special that anyone else couldn't have also done. In that case why would he deserve that much money?

Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout

#130

So according to this 2018 article by The Verge [1], Foxconn workers producing iGadgets in China earn on average $390.16 per month. Times that by twelve and we find that workers earn $4,681.92 per year on average. If we divide Tim's $750,000,000 bonus/payout this year by that $4,681.92 yearly Foxconn salary, we get 160,190 My question is: how is Tim so productive that he does roughly 160,000 people’s work, or 1/8th of…

For some reason owners of Apple value Tim Cook worth of billions.

I am sure that if you can replace Tim Cook and work for 390$ per month, owners will happily fire Tim Cook.

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