Apple chief executive Tim Cook gets $750m payout • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by bserge » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 1:54 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #258

bserge wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you like your current job? Why would someone like Cook start a new business when he can do it within Apple?

Can he turn Apple into a computer company that would focus on replaceable, modular electronics? Something like Fairphone, but on a bigger scale and with more resources, or that could have more runway without turning a profit? No, he can't. Apple is known for being a company that wants to integrate everything and needs to control all of its process. And for all the environmental talk, they would never sacrifice their…

Wouldn't he have done that by investing some of his money by now? It's clear he's not interested in those things and his interests align with Apple's

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

#282

Post by UncleMeat » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 1:54 PM UTC

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #277

UncleMeat wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is a poor take. Productivity is meaningless, leverage and impact is everything. Tim Cook working for one day could easily have a larger impact than most people will have in their entire lives because he has extremely high leverage. Is it fair? Absolutely not, but life is not fair. I don't understand what moral obligation society should have to base compensation on productivity. PS: you could argue that Tim Cook…

> PS: you could argue that Tim Cook is far more productive than everyone else because he produces far more results than everyone else.

Of course. "Pay by productivity" does not mean "pay everybody the same per hour of labor". Cook's output has greater influence on the company than any (or perhaps almost any) other employee at Apple. He should be paid commensurate to that output.

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

#283

Post by UncleMeat » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #268

UncleMeat wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 anyw…

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

But you say that if we paid by productivity then entrepreneurs would simply bypass those people. Whether that is possible is independent of how we determine compensation.

> It's not that hard.

You allow yourself to provide a very loose mechanism for roughly determining scarcity but demand a very precise mechanism for determining productivity in the previous post. This is an unfair comparison.

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

#284

Post by Turing_Machine » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #72

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?

> by their scarcity By their perceived scarcity Chances are that anyone other than Tim could have done just as well. Still, this is over 10 years, and Apple shares have increased in value by 1900%. If they were still the same value he’d have gotten 40M, for about 4M per year. Which is much more reasonable. I still think it’s high, but in line with what others get.

> Chances are that anyone other than Tim could have done just as well.

The history of Apple CEOs indicates otherwise.

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

#285

Post by Turing_Machine » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

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…

Apple was a giant rolling ball of success when John Sculley took over, too.

But that sure didn't last.

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

#286

Post by ZephyrBlu » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 1:58 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #265

MikeLumos wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Elsewhere in this post people have said that his compensation is 0.03% of Apple's market cap.

It would not be hard to believe that Tim Cook's decisions had a larger impact than that on Apple's market cap because he has extremely high leverage as the CEO.

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

#287

Post by rglullis » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 1:59 PM UTC

Applejinx wrote: post #276

rglullis wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can he turn Apple into a computer company that would focus on replaceable, modular electronics? Something like Fairphone, but on a bigger scale and with more resources, or that could have more runway without turning a profit? No, he can't. Apple is known for being a company that wants to integrate everything and needs to control all of its process. And for all the environmental talk, they would never sacrifice their…

If he did, would he then be worth the 750 million?

If he did, it would be because the board would have approved the decision and would be willing to make this kind of bet.

But this is getting so much in the realm of the hypotheticals, I really don't care about the argument either way.

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

#288

Post by ZephyrBlu » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #282

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a poor take. Productivity is meaningless, leverage and impact is everything. Tim Cook working for one day could easily have a larger impact than most people will have in their entire lives because he has extremely high leverage. Is it fair? Absolutely not, but life is not fair. I don't understand what moral obligation society should have to base compensation on productivity. PS: you could argue that Tim Cook…

> PS: you could argue that Tim Cook is far more productive than everyone else because he produces far more results than everyone else. Of course. "Pay by productivity" does not mean "pay everybody the same per hour of labor". Cook's output has greater influence on the company than any (or perhaps almost any) other employee at Apple. He should be paid commensurate to that output.

Oh, how do you think of productivity then? (E.g stock price, revenue growth, etc?)

I assumed you meant something along the lines "pay everybody the same per hour of labor" since that seems to be how most people describe productivity.

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

#289

Post by ctvo » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #258

bserge wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you like your current job? Why would someone like Cook start a new business when he can do it within Apple?

Can he turn Apple into a computer company that would focus on replaceable, modular electronics? Something like Fairphone, but on a bigger scale and with more resources, or that could have more runway without turning a profit? No, he can't. Apple is known for being a company that wants to integrate everything and needs to control all of its process. And for all the environmental talk, they would never sacrifice their…

When did Tim Cook become interested in those things? No he can’t turn Apple into a pizza delivery service either. And?

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

#290

Post by rglullis » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

bserge wrote: post #281

rglullis wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can he turn Apple into a computer company that would focus on replaceable, modular electronics? Something like Fairphone, but on a bigger scale and with more resources, or that could have more runway without turning a profit? No, he can't. Apple is known for being a company that wants to integrate everything and needs to control all of its process. And for all the environmental talk, they would never sacrifice their…

Wouldn't he have done that by investing some of his money by now? It's clear he's not interested in those things and his interests align with Apple's

More likely, he can not invest in these kind of things without being called out for conflict of interest.

But anyway, you asked if there is any kind of job that he couldn't do at Apple. I just gave you a couple of examples. You didn't specify that it had to me something that he would be personally interested in doing publicly. I don't know him personally nor I care about him (or Apple) to spend more time and thought about the matter.