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Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout

bbc.com

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

#181

Post by avianlyric »

crispyambulance wrote: post #144
rglullis wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> How many Tim Cook's do you have lying around? I think that's also silly calculation. Beyond a certain (admittedly unknowable) point, compensation becomes a meaningless number for the individual. Would Tim Cook "rage-quit" Apple if they could only pay him, say, 75 million instead of 750 million? If yes, then it's pure greed. If no, then it's too much. Is there something substantive behind that 750 million figure oth…

It’s shares and Apple’s market cap is 2.44 Trillion. Effectively shareholders paid 0.03cents on the dollar for Tim Cook. In exchange they get a steady ship that slowly and surely increases in value.

Why quibble about such a small amount? You’ve paid 0.03% of your current Apple holdings for a decade of growth creating value many orders of magnitude greater.

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

#182

Post by bohemian99 »

uuddlrlr wrote: post #146
mombul wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the fact that Apple's share price has increased 1,200% since he took over is just a coincidence?

To be fair Apple was already a giant rolling ball of success, and they have historically had an ingrained culture of caring deeply about their products above all else. Any decisions that would affect their trajectory will get a ton of deliberation from a lot of smart people; i.e. there wouldn't need to be a ton of input or ingenuity from the CEO to see returns like those from Apple, imho. Not to say that Cook isn't g…

So many companies have flatlined after a new CEO took over, think Microsoft after Ballmer took over. So I think there is some difficulty involve.

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

#183

Post by bobcostas55 »

eptcyka wrote: post #161
mombul wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the fact that Apple's share price has increased 1,200% since he took over is just a coincidence?

I think it's laughable to assume that it was only Tim Cook who contributed to that. Indeed, where would we be if it wasn't for these handful of superhuman geniuses.

During his tenure the market cap has increased by about $2 trillion. How much of that value has Cook captured? A very small %. Perhaps even smaller than his actual contribution! You could easily make the argument that Cook is being exploited by the shareholders.

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

#184

Post by whitehouse3 »

jstx1 wrote: post #47

Good for him. Pretty cool to see especially given that paying him these shares was agreed 10 years ago and Apple stock has crushed it since then. It's kind of weird to see some other comments attacking rich people just because they're rich, or completely misunderstanding the role of a CEO.

The weirdness to me is judging whether the ideas expressed across this thread are altruistic or just garden variety envy. Maybe the answer is “both/and” depending on one’s perspective.

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

#185

Post by PeterisP »

jaggederest wrote: post #43
danpalmer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you can say that about anyone who makes anything based on work from anyone else. While it's important to recognise those others (as those at Apple with stock based compensation have been), I don't think it nullifies the point because they didn't do all the work themselves.

In what possible world could Tim Cook personally have done anything worth $75m, let alone $750m? How can any single human being create value at that scale? I don't understand the apologia for what is, on its face, a massively skewed system of compensation completely unrelated to any possible basis in reality.

In your opinion, can a bit better CEO (not outrageously better, just somewhat better than the other guy/gal with a bit brighter long-term strategy and a bit different focus for the subordinate top managers) personally make a 1% total difference in company growth across ten years?

If you don't accept that, then I'll just have to disagree based on how I've seen companies are managed, IMHO personalities matter at least that much. But if you do accept that, then that obviously means that a single human being can create value at that scale, as 1% impact on Apple's growth over 10 years would be something like $20 billion. Being in positions with extremely high leverage means that your decisions have extremely high impact on value. Of course, there are also opposite examples of CEOs who have personally destroyed billions of value through their decisions.

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

#186

Post by UncleMeat »

rglullis wrote: post #114
UncleMeat wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it should be about productivity. People are highlighting a moral failing of society.

If we were to live in a world where we are measured by our productivity, we would ALL be treated like the replaceable cogs from the Chinese factory.

Do you feel that your productivity as a trained professional is the same as anybody else's productivity?

The trick would be to allow workers to capture all of their productivity rather than have a large amount of it syphoned off by owners.

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

#187

Post by pdpi »

blunte wrote: post #19
amelius wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know that for sure? With less compensation perhaps he wouldn't work as hard.

I'm not arguing for or against his payment amount, but I find it hard to believe someone would work less hard if they were told, "You'll only receive an extra $200 million in 10 years, in addition to your normal salary, instead of an extra $750 million." Who would say, "Nah, sounds like a lot of work for only $200 million extra. I'll just coast, thank you."

Nobody said "You'll get $750M". They said "You'll get 5M shares" (apparently worth around $75M at the time). His leadership turned those 5M shares into $750M dollars.

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

#188

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

rglullis wrote: post #174
tclancy wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that’s frightening to you, I think you’re seeing the point.

Isn't that frightening to you ? What makes you think you would not be living under the whip?

I think parent's point is: why do we think it is ok to treat some people this way and not others?

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

#189

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

When will the people understand, that if you force the equality, it'll result in mediocrity?

USSR has learned this lesson the hard way, so it is sad to see how many well-off Americans a rushing head first into it voluntarily?

Trust me, you won't like the results. You have a 200square meters house? Nobody needs that many space, and also there are so many homeless in Los Angeles. You take two rooms 24square meters each, and the rest of the house would be distributed among the needy.

Do you like this perspective? This was the first thing done when Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, I'm not kidding. All in the name of equality.

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

#190

Post by voisin »

crispyambulance wrote: post #144
rglullis wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> How many Tim Cook's do you have lying around? I think that's also silly calculation. Beyond a certain (admittedly unknowable) point, compensation becomes a meaningless number for the individual. Would Tim Cook "rage-quit" Apple if they could only pay him, say, 75 million instead of 750 million? If yes, then it's pure greed. If no, then it's too much. Is there something substantive behind that 750 million figure oth…

> If yes, then it's pure greed. If no, then it's too much.

I think these numbers are set by compensation committees of the Board of Directors using consultants that analyze other private and public company data. So if you have some small number of greedy individuals pushing for massive compensation based on stock performance, then that trickles through the industry. Cook doesn’t have to be greedy to just not want to be underpaid relative to market, even when the market is set by a few greedy individuals.

It is a race to the top. Solvable via regulation if anyone really cared, but I suspect no one really does.

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