Thing is, more than 60% of the people who sit on the corporate compensation committees that set these executive's pay are themselves C-level execs of other companies. They're voting each other raises. So it's literally a good old boy's club and not representative of actual value.
No, no, no. Again, and here I must quote me: “Everything is worth exactly what someone else is willing to pay for it…”. That IS the actual value. That’s how actual value is set and defined. You can grouse about it, disagree with it, doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter who the ”someone’s” are. While that may smack of the “good old boys club” it absolutely represents actual value pretty much by definition. There is no other way of establishing value, none, nada, zippo, goose egg. Pay studies, very au currant today, are comparisons of supposedly similar jobs across companies, industries, geographies, and so on while trying to reflect local situations. That’s very similar to how appraisers and realtors value properties using “comps.” That’s fine unless you’re in, for example, a historic district where no two homes are at all the same size, architecture, or lot area and there are literally no comps to be had. We then go back to my quoted statement above. Artificial values can always be created such as, for example, salary caps, the ever-popular wage grade and step bands in government employment, and so on. Those have no direct correlation to value but are just a pay structure that’s quite easy to administer and automate, eliminating the alternative of renegotiating contacts for every employee every year. Jobs have to fit into those bands, not the reverse unless recruitment efforts turn up nothing and the job gets put into a different band. CEO of Apple is, to me, analogous to one of those historic homes…maybe not completely unique but rare enough for sure (how many trillion dollar companies are there again?) so few CEO ”comps” exist.
Ability to pay is always a factor in valuation, but only at the micro level. No, I wouldn’t pay $900,000 for an iPhone, nor would I pay $900 either but that’s me. A smartphone device, for me, represents a device and set of features I value at about $600 and then only every 5-6 years. Obviously I am not keeping Apple in business but many millions of others feel differently. On the other hand as a member of the Board of Directors for a trillion-dollar company with billions sitting all over the world in cash, ability to pay is not really a factor, just the opportunity costs of money usage. As a Director, do I want that money used to reward/retain a CEO who has delivered more products, more investor value, and more overall growth than all but a very few companies on the planet armed with the specific goals and absolute expectations that that CEO will continue to do so? Unlike Tim, there are too many companies that are doing or have done quite poorly in the market with their products/services, limited/no growth, and evaporating investor value who’s C-suite all got enormous comp packages. Again, their respective boards must have thought that worth it, but those are the cases I get agita about, not Apple.
Popular delusions are still delusions. There are laws restricting the abuse of market power (and laws encouraging it). There is a suspect economic argument that Tim deserves this salary. There is no moral argument at all. Tim knows this and you can be sure he doesn’t want anyone looking at his compensation. People should think for themselves rather than just accept the supposed realities of life.
You really aren’t getting it are you. Tim’s salary, and total compensation package as a C-level executive for a public company, is all published material in required SEC documents available to everyone. Whether he wants his comp package known or not is irrelevant. And not wanting attention paid? That ship sails when the SEC docs are published.
Interesting comments of yours:
Also missing the point. I couldn't be less envious of Tim Cook. (Go cry to the moderator about that.)
I think you nailed the point well. I don't get why certain actors or musicians or sports players get as much as they do, but that's just me~
Study was in 2013 and pre-pandemic. Everything has changed. But in some respects I agree, no one person in the company is indispensable.
