When did HN start hating on people like Tim Cook instead of having the arrogance and the self-confidence to think that someday you'd be making that sort of coin?
Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout
211–220 of 360 posts
Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rich people spend money on charities they like. They change society the way they want it to change that does not necessarily make society a better place nor is it necessarily what most people want. If he had to pay all of this on taxes, society could decide how to use that money and it would be just as much, if not more "a better place".
Why this criticism? Is HIV research not a good enough cause for you? Much better than a 10 billion dollar airport or 15 billion dollar Olympics in my opinion.
There’s no guarantee that Tim’s going to use his money for “good” causes, we’re entirely dependent on his good will.
He may go down the evangelical Christian path and fund a war of sex, abortions, gays, trans and people’s reproductive rights. That’s not even a hypothetical outcome, there’s plenty of millionaires and billionaires (like David Green) already funding that war.
Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> Is there something substantive behind that 750 million figure other than very powerful people just paying themselves as much as they can get away with? I think not. If you are already rich enough to retire many times over, why should you keep working on something that doesn't move the scale of your money (and consequently power and ability to do other things, including starting a new business that could disrupt you…
Because you like your current job? Why would someone like Cook start a new business when he can do it within Apple?
Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I guess my point is that the leadership within Apple is a lot more diffuse than typical;
I believe most of Apple's value is from delivering a high degree of consistency and polish; owing to its culture of relentlessly developing the UX of their products.
Therefore the CEO's primary roles at Apple would be to maintain that culture, steer the ship into new segments, and discern when the public will care about those segments.
I think Cook has done a decent job of that.
Making it all possible with RnD and supply chain is another story, but also where Cook is known to excel so maybe I'm underselling him. Jobs had Cook so presumably Cook would find a Cook if he weren't Cook.
I don't know much about Microsoft but Balmer was definitely taking over a different beast than Cook.
Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout
#215Relevant (to me): This is due to the deal Apple made with Tim a decade ago. I took a screenshot of HN the day Jobs died. I also have the WSJ from that day, but it's buried in a box somewhere.
Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Probably thousands? Lmfao. Hacker News, never change.
Certainly thousands of people could achieve similar or better, finding one of them just happens to be incredibly difficult and risky.
"Similar" on the scale of a company worth $2.4 trillion isn't negligible. Nor is "difficult" or "risky."
There's one person in the world with a proven track record of succeeding leading the world's most valuable company over a decade. This compensation is a drop in the bucket relative to even a single strategic mishap by a less qualified candidate.
Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
- Because the people that already found a way to display the scarcity of their talent or abilities don't need to subject themselves to a system that measures them by their productivity.
- Because it is not on "us" to try to change this at an universal scale. I am all for people that believe in communist ideals and go to live on their own with like-minded people. The problem is those that take this to totalitarianism and think something like "communism can only work if it everyone does it"
- Because history has witnessed already many people that tried to change this reality without ignoring scale, and ended up causing more problems that solutions, destroyed more wealth and made the world worse than they started off.
Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
And during his lifetime, this money is locked away, only accessible by him, taken out of circulation and thereby not adding any worth against ever-growing inequality, supporting economic prosperity or tax-funded investments. This is just once again a case of philanthropic green-washing of what should be actually simply heavily taxed.
> This is just once again a case of philanthropic green-washing of what should be actually simply heavily taxed. Not being snarky but heavily taxed and then what? Expect the government to make the best decision on how to spend money?
I think if we go heavy handed against wealth inequality then we should also legislate conservative spending by governments. This money can’t go to the fund next Afghanistan or to Israel to fund another settlement. It has to go to simple but surely-helpful efforts like: feeding the poor, improving education, and building infrastructure.
Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout
#219Earlier 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 Probably thousands? Just put a job ad for "Apple CEO" out there, set pay at a generous 10 million/year and I'm pretty sure you won't have issues finding qualified candidates. I really don't think Apple's valuation would change much if Tim Cook is replaced, so I don't see what justifies such a large bonus.
Maybe, but how do you know who they are? Judging talent, especially executive talent at the outset is extremely hard.
It sure seems like whatever Tim Cook is doing is working. Remember when Apple went through three CEOs in a decade and nearly went bankrupt? Mismanagement of a company for even a few years can put a company in a tailspin for a decade. For a mature successful company Tim Cook is exactly what you want. Why mess with success?
Re: Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout
#220So 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…
>What makes Apple treat Chinese workers so differently?
You're asking the wrong question.
It should be: Why is there no disincentive to take unfair advantage of cheap foreign labor?