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Apple Again Rewarding Some Engineers With Up to $200K in Stock Bonuses
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By others do you mean Apple retail employees? Because I don’t think Apple give them a second thought, let alone a shout-out. I could be wrong, but the only time I see a photo of a pastel grunt is when an executive does a photo op.
Yeah $100-$200k over 4 years? I certainly wouldn't turn it down if offered an extra $25-$50k a year but surely this is chips for top notch engineers?
I guess an inherent feature is that if Apple's stock increases, they could get significantly more.
Waiting for the Retail employees to complain next about not getting a second bonus...
Apple products sell themselves, apple engineers create the magic behind the products, one could argue every employee is important but at the end of the day without the geniuses behind the bean counters, they couldn’t brag about their brand spanking new products so that the retail workers could take Apple “Seep” classes from the app and learn all about hidden features lolol.
It (annual bonuses of this sort of size) IS the norm (or at least was when I worked there). Not every year, not for everyone; but if the company is doing well (apparently it is...) and if you did good work, then your manager has discretion to offer a substantial bonus, like two or three month's salary.
Like so much in journalism, the authors have taken a fact ("some engineers that we know of got bonuses") with no context ("did other engineers in different departments also get bonuses?", "how common is this?") and turned it into a theory "engineers got bonuses to stop them from going to another company".
That is how outside observers see it due to several news articles of former employee of [insert tech company] now a part of/has joined [another tech company] so maybe it is somewhat like a bribe so they will remain with the current company...
The incentive in these awards is that if the company performs well and the stock price increases, the awards may be worth substantially more by the time they vest. In addition, employees are sometimes granted additional RSUs after the initial grant, usually based on personal performance.
Good, acknowledging that your employee is as much a part of the company as upper management is a good thing. Spread the wealth will actually do good, unlike having yet another multi billionaire at the top.
Apple is again providing stock bonuses to some engineers in order to encourage them to stay with the company, reports Bloomberg. Select hardware and software engineers are receiving bonuses of up to $200k, a rare offering from Apple.
Back in December, Apple provided up to $180,000 in bonuses to select engineers in silicon design, hardware, and operations, while the new bonuses are going to both hardware and software engineers. The source who told Bloomberg about the new round of bonuses said that fewer engineers are receiving the special grant this time around.
The bonuses, ranging from $100,000 to $200,000, have been provided in the form of restricted stock units that are set to vest over the course of four years provided the employees stay with Apple and do not take jobs at other companies.
Apple has been providing bonuses to encourage employee retention and to prevent other companies like Meta from poaching its top talent.
Article Link: Apple Again Rewarding Some Engineers With Up to $200K in Stock Bonuses
Honestly, the engineers responsible for designing these Apple-Silicon chips have probably easily added hundreds of billions of dollars to Apple's value alone. And Apple hasn't even finished converting the Mac lineup yet. I'd say these bonuses are very well deserved.
The folks who designed these CPUs and engineered these devices have done something remarkable.
The folks who designed these CPUs and engineered these devices have done something remarkable.
Its the 80s again!
I had bonus stock in the web company I worked for in 1999, about £12k vested for 2 years… 6 months later it was worth £250k. 3 months later it was worth £420 - no K! Company folded. Everyone fired.
I did escape with a voluntary redundancy of £9k and a one year London travel card! Not too bad considering I was only there 14 months.
Ah the internet bubble!
I had bonus stock in the web company I worked for in 1999, about £12k vested for 2 years… 6 months later it was worth £250k. 3 months later it was worth £420 - no K! Company folded. Everyone fired.
I did escape with a voluntary redundancy of £9k and a one year London travel card! Not too bad considering I was only there 14 months.
Ah the internet bubble!
Considering what those engineers are actually doing, and the amount of recurrent revenue that comes from their creations, over, and over, and over, and over again...
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I think calling it a bribe is inaccurate. From hardware intellectual property to especially software IP, these things yield tremendous profits when the engineers' creations succeed, and with Apple they tend to succeed often. Even more, they can replicate that IP, over, and over, and over, and over again, long after the engineers have left or been let go, through sales. A fair term is perhaps "incentive", or even better it is a share of the wealth they generated. So, the people that actually create it, may receive a share of those dividends/gains over time... just like the executives and investors.... it's just the engineers' cut is so much smaller. For fun to go study the SEC filings for the top insiders. That $200K vested over years starts to look like peanuts in comparison, but not a bribe.
That said, the real money is not in the doing, creating, building. The real big money is at the executive level or investor level. Get yourself a million dollar sign-on bonus and options when you join, get a few million in salary along the way, and even get an exit bonus when you leave. Plus, if the company hits target numbers, well... the sky is the limit. Ask "Tim Apple" about his latest bonus. Those engineers, designers, creators, have done absolutely amazing things, and the stock just keeps hitting new highs because people love what they produce. I may be mistaken, but if recollection is right, I think Tim's last bonus was around $110,000,000. Absolutely mind boggling.
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honest question, why companies reward employees with $100K stocks, why not just give them $100K in cash? If they want to leave they will just sell their stocks and leave, same thing.
my other question is, stocks has a previous owner so where did Apple get those stocks to give to their employees? Are they buying it for them?
my other question is, stocks has a previous owner so where did Apple get those stocks to give to their employees? Are they buying it for them?
They are getting restricted stock options. They get ownership of some stock after they stay a certain amount of time, such as a portion every year for 4 or 5 years. They are "golden handcuffs" tying the person to the job.
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That bonus should be on top of whatever existing RSU engineers already get. Otherwise, that ain’t much.
I'll answer the second question first.
I think it works like this. The original financing company files a bunch of information with the SEC, financials, number of shares they intend to sell, etc. Say they declare 100 shares will be issued during the initial public offering. They sell just 10 of those shares on the open market, and common shareholders eagerly buy and trade them amongst themselves. As the company performs and maintains a good story, and evidential (or speculative) growth, those shares in the free market are valued more highly. The valuation goes up, that is also great for the other 90 shares still being held. Some are given to the executives and original, early investors... preferred share holders. Say you give 10 to the CEO. He or she cannot sell them right away, but eventually they can. Naturally, they are incentivized to drive the valuation up. Whether that is through fancy accounting or motivating workers to work harder, smarter, faster, and longer, to increase sales. The financials look better, the story sounds better, the future is brighter, the valuation goes up, the executives file to sale at some particular date, and yay! They're printing money. Now multiply all of that times millions or billions.
That is also how some companies can so quickly say they are worth $50 billion dollars, even though they aren't even making a profit. This isn't the case for Apple of course, but there are plenty of companies with great stories, lots of shares, no profit, yet wildly high market valuations.
To answer the first question, it's not really costing the company anything in actual dollars to give options, which don't immediately vest, to the workers. The workers, just like the executives, want to do things to make the company more valuable, to drive up the valuation, and the enforced delay keeps them in place till they achieve that.
Also, the company can even file to issue more shares, which they again give to the workers or executives like tokens to cash-in at a later date. Common shareholders might not like that, especially if it doesn't result in more profit, growth, and higher valuations. It cleverly shifts value around, with the hope of incentivizing faster growth, but dilutes common shareholders and initial investor's holdings. Common shareholders do like the inverse though, when the company removes shares from circulation through buybacks. Apple seems particularly good at balancing all of this, balancing incentives, inspiring innovation, and returning gains to shareholders, which now includes the workers producing the wealth.
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