Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 265 posts

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#181

Post by gonehome »

perardi wrote: post #28

Let’s run through the possible reasons Apple announced this, with various degrees of cynicism. 1. Getting some good press before Congress decides to do something in regards to the app store model. 2. Apple is reading the winds, seeing that Chinese supply chains may be politically constrained, and preparing for that future. 3. Apple is reading the winds, seeing that Chinese supply chains may be politically constrained…

If I was Apple getting out of the Chinese supply chain would be a priority - if only to have some leverage with a second option.

It seems like a pretty high risk situation for them and has chilling effects elsewhere (content restrictions on Apple TV). It also damages their brand ethos around privacy. CCP pressure on Taiwan and TSMC is also a concern I'd be thinking about if I was them.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#182

Post by 55555 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #15
55555 wrote: post #9

Can anyone break down what the $430B is going towards?

Good question. It sounds like employee compensation is included in the figure so it really could just be "all projected US expenditures in the next 5 years".

That's what I assumed. I couldn't see any other way this would be even remotely possible.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#183

Post by plank_time »

perardi wrote: post #28

Let’s run through the possible reasons Apple announced this, with various degrees of cynicism. 1. Getting some good press before Congress decides to do something in regards to the app store model. 2. Apple is reading the winds, seeing that Chinese supply chains may be politically constrained, and preparing for that future. 3. Apple is reading the winds, seeing that Chinese supply chains may be politically constrained…

Apple is already moving out of China for some of their factories. India was a big target for this.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#184

Post by reducesuffering »

dcolkitt wrote: post #179
dmode wrote: post #151

Wait, no investment in Miami ? Reading tech twitter, folks already claimed Miami to be the next tech hub

As a Floridian, it's difficult for me to understand why we've done so bad at attracting any sort of tech industry. Five, ten years ago, you could simply say that it's Silicon Valley (or Seattle) or bust. But since then, Austin, Denver, NC, Nova, Portland, Nashville and others have all done a really good job of actually competing with California for tech industry growth. On paper, Florida seems like it should be reall…

Lack of intellectual density.

> Austin, Denver, NC, Nova, Portland, Nashville

All have great universities in the immediate vicinity which are a nexus for commercial intellect. These metros are roughly 1/3 of the size with probably double on avg. the available tech talent pool.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#185

Post by eliseumds »

RhodoGSA wrote: post #148
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why it should come back to the US They are a US company, reaping the tax benefits of that nexus. If they'd been an EU company, they would have paid a lot more in various taxes (including higher wage taxes) over the last 40 years. IOW, they would not be as wealthy a company today.

The US is one of the only countries that taxs worldwide income.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#186

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

sosborn wrote: post #162
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If crazy tax schemes are legal, that's the politicians' fault for not fixing them, not Apple's 100% agreed. > who has a duty to shareholders to, you know, not pay more taxes than they have to I don't believe they have any such duty. Corporate charitable giving is a really big thing.

Corporate charitable giving is also a means to stay in the public's good graces. It is a long-term play for profit. (I'm not arguing that it is a bad thing).

> It is a long-term play for profit.

Is it? I'd expect most of it is driven by actually valuing the charity. If we frame even the charitable stuff as profit-driven, it just reinforces the idea of some duty towards profit.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#187

Post by sam0x17 »

dev_tty01 wrote: post #143
sam0x17 wrote: post #128

Announcing a new multi-billion dollar campus during a pandemic strikes me as so fucking out of touch, and goes against the direction the industry was already going pre-pandemic. IMO at this point they should just fold and start transitioning to permanent work from home like the vast majority of startups and tech companies. This terrifies FANG because then they will have a vacant campus and whoever commissioned it wil…

They sell hardware and lots of it. That requires labs and direct collaboration at many points in the process. It also requires lots of highly specialized test equipment and test facilities. This cannot be done with everyone working from home. It is naive to suggest otherwise. Also, many of us enjoy and still want direct in-person collaboration. If you don't and your job doesn't require it, then good for you. Enjoy, b…

There is literally no difference between sitting in a zoom call all day with your coworkers while you code and sitting in a cubicle with them. Sometimes HN is so boomer brain

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#188

Post by t0mas88 »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #139
laurent92 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of Apple’s money is made abroad. Is there a reason why it should come back to the US at a loss for the stock holder?

> why it should come back to the US They are a US company, reaping the tax benefits of that nexus. If they'd been an EU company, they would have paid a lot more in various taxes (including higher wage taxes) over the last 40 years. IOW, they would not be as wealthy a company today.

They also pay EU (and many other) wage taxes since those are all paid in the location of employment. This cash discussion is all about corporate tax.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#189

Post by jimmont »

perardi wrote: post #28

Let’s run through the possible reasons Apple announced this, with various degrees of cynicism. 1. Getting some good press before Congress decides to do something in regards to the app store model. 2. Apple is reading the winds, seeing that Chinese supply chains may be politically constrained, and preparing for that future. 3. Apple is reading the winds, seeing that Chinese supply chains may be politically constrained…

Apple and much US associated supply chains have already been moving away from China. Media is regularly coming up where the side effects are reported, for example the Foxconn contractor in India. The US lacks the infrastructure to leverage talent or capacity domestically. The only thing that will fix this is government policy--otherwise Silicon Valley would have decent transit, no homelessness and California would have its own State or region-level healthcare delivery network. The same things Taiwan has with only 23 million people that benefits TSMC (and the people there).

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#190

Post by simonh »

Covzire wrote: post #170
simonh wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is almost right, but TSMC is a fab operator yet they seem to have transitioned to 5nm just fine. However you are correct in that TSMC still owns and operates its older node fabs. Today's cutting edge fab is tomorrow's legacy fab producing no-longer cutting edge commodity parts. This is why Apple won't buy any fabs or fab operators themselves.

Still they could sell foundry services for any spare capacity, or sell them to another company when it's no longer using them for cutting edge. I'm sure there's a very good reason they're not going that route but I can't help but think the whole world would be better off if the players that can afford it would operate their own fabs. I guess as long as Apple thinks they can remain the highest bidder at TSMC and China…

But who would the be selling that legacy fab capacity to? It would most likely be their competitors, at least in part. I just dont see Apples management being all that enthusiastic about any of that as a business. They put a huge premium in being as focused as possible.
Post reply on HN