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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

#261

Post by sumedh »

beckman466 wrote: post #46

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…

> how is Tim so productive that he does roughly 160,000 people’s work

How many Blackberry or Palms phones are being made, if the person at the top screws up, all those workers are out of a job.

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

#262

Post by inetknght »

Grustaf wrote: post #77
akie wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Of course no one needs it. But the discussion here was if he had earned it, and he definitely has. Relative to value creation, I bet he’s very low in the CEO compensation league.

> But the discussion here was if he had earned it, and he definitely has.

I disagree.

> Relative to value creation, I bet he’s very low in the CEO compensation league.

You really think Tim Cook has created the value of the company? I very seriously doubt it. At the risk of whataboutisms: what about the engineers who did the work? What about the factory workers who did the work? What about the contractors who did the work?

Tim Cook didn't create the value. He created a contract. That's all.

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

#263

Post by sumedh »

cuillevel3 wrote: post #244
vmurthy wrote: post #38

From the article : "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". Success during one's life , paying it back to make the society a better place once gone. Take a bow, Mr Cook. What more can one ask for in a lifetime :)

Why not just pay taxes instead? That's literally paying it back to society.

To fund wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or some other country?

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

#264

Post by purple_ferret »

vmurthy wrote: post #38

From the article : "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". Success during one's life , paying it back to make the society a better place once gone. Take a bow, Mr Cook. What more can one ask for in a lifetime :)

He's got no kids so, where else would it go?

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

#265

Post by inetknght »

MikeLumos wrote: post #124
akie wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> People are not paid based on what they need, they're paid based on value they provide

If that were true then he'd be paid far less. Tim Cook does not provide value to Apple to the tune of billions of dollars. The people who work for Apple do.

> how difficult they are to replace

What would be difficult about replacing Tim Cook?

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

#266

Post by TrackerFF »

brk wrote: post #236
beckman466 wrote: post #46

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…

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 My question is: if Tim Cook didn't exist, would any of those Foxconn workers have jobs? My other questions is: if you put 160,190 Foxconn workers in front of 160,190 development environments, how long before they would randomly re-create the iPhone? You can't compare salaries, or even val…

I think it's a interesting discussion, because often when CEO comps come under scrutiny, one side will naturally argue that company performance correlated directly to CEO performance.

Stock goes up = CEO does good job

Stock stagnates or goes down = CEO does a bad job.

It's an incredibly complex ting to analyze - but how much of company performance is really the result of the CEO, and the CEO alone? Sure, he sets the N-year course of the company, and being the navigator and captain of a ship, you should get some reward if the ship arrives its destination, intact, and on time.

But I mean, how much of Apple company performance is nothing more than just built up momentum? Apple doesn't need to be revolutionary or cutting edge. They just need to adopt working/in-demand products to their own (Apple) domain, and their brand name alone will sell those products. Those Foxconn workers would likely have their jobs, Tim Cook or not in charge. And if not Foxconn, then some other factories and factory workers.

Ok, that's a lot of rambling, but I guess my point is that when you're dealing with a behemoth of a company like Apple, with hundreds of millions of users locked in to their products, it's difficult to credit a CEO alone of the success.

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

#267

Post by q3k »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #189

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…

> This was the first thing done when Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, I'm not kidding. All in the name of equality.

You should see what some states have done in the name of freedom and democracy elsewhere

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

#268

Post by rglullis »

UncleMeat wrote: post #251
rglullis wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you feel that your productivity as a trained professional is the same as anybody else's productivity? How would you even compare that? How would you even measure your productivity? Lines of code? Tickets closed? We can't even compare "productivity" in our own "profession", much less between different ones. Fuck, even to think in terms of "professions" today seems so anachronistic... some of the best people I wor…

> How would you even compare that? How would you even measure your productivity? Lines of code? Tickets closed? How would you measure your scarcity? It is similarly difficult. "Workers are paid according to their productivity" does not mean "there is a fixed mechanical pay formula based on lines of code or something". > More likely, entrepreneurs would simply automate the shit of out of their work and outsource what…

> If entrepreneurs can already do this, why the fuck are they paying so much money for engineers in the bay area?

Because these people are scarce and companies can't automate that type of job. Yet.

But, just look at what happened when Facebook decided to not pay SF salaries to those that moved out of the Bay Area. That was just Zuck saying "if you want be anywhere in the world to work here, then I can also look anywhere in the world to hire people", which instantly made them realize that they are not that scarce anymore.

> How would you measure your scarcity?

- My employer finds someone that can do my job for less money than I am asking, so they replace me. I am not as scarce as I thought.

- Some other company will offer more money to do the same job I am doing currently. I am more scarce than I thought.

- I work on new things, show experience or an ability that not everyone in the company can - let's say I am now able to manage a team of developers or I can work on both the backend and do devops. My scarcity increased.

It's not that hard.

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

#269

Post by snowwrestler »

avianlyric wrote: post #166
ahtihn wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think this is ignoring the risks associated with such a change. You might find people qualified on paper, but you really don’t know how that translates into real world performance until you try it. The risk of getting that wrong and accidentally destroying billions of dollars of shareholder value (don’t like the term, but it seems appropriate here) is very high (low likelihood, extremely high severity). As a board…

The risk is being taken primarily by the employees and the shareholders, but many of the rewards go to the CEO.

Boards of directors are scared of getting it wrong, and they memorialize that fear in contracts that throw tremendous amounts of money at their preferred candidate, often making guarantees regardless of performance.

But it’s not like boards have a spectacular record on picking CEOs in general. Well-regarded people blow it as CEO every year, but they still get tons of money. Why? Because of this deep belief that “CEO-quality” people are extremely rare, so every plausible candidate is incredibly precious.

To be fair, business boards are not unique in this failing. Professional sports teams fall into the same trap all the time.

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

#270

Post by rglullis »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #257
rglullis wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately, yes. But where does that power come from?

Does Putin's, Joe Biden's and Edison's power come from the same 'source'? Are you implying power come from scarsity? Do we have scarsity of politicians?

Do you think that politicians are powerful? Power to me implies having the ability to do things beyond their attributions and expectations.

I think that if Biden or even Putin decided to color outside of the lines, they would be removed from their positions without prejudice.

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