Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple CEO Tim Cook Earned Over $11 Million in 2019, Not Counting Stock Awards

delta0 said:
You pay normal tax like it was pay. This happens at the time the shares vest. The only difference is if the price goes up then when you sell them you may also have capital gains tax on the gain (based on difference between vest and sell price).
Click to expand...
Taxed as ordinary income when shares vest is true for Cook and others who receive awards of restricted stock. However, in the more general case of employee stock option plans, taxes aren’t due until the option exercise date (or maybe not even until the underlying shares are actually sold), not at the vesting date.

There can be other tax advantages depending on whether the options are qualified incentive stock options or non-qualified. ISOs are potentially taxed as long term capital gains and taxes aren’t due until the underlying share are sold, if certain conditions are met. (They are still subject to Alternative Minimum Tax however.) Non-quals are taxed as ordinary income at the time of exercise.
 
Abazigal said:
Well, intelligence is a very subjective thing. When Steve Jobs conceptualised the iPhone, I am sure he wasn't able to actually code any of the features found on it, even though he had a very clear vision of how he wanted the product to turn out. But at the end of the day, he helped put together one of the most successful gadgets in tech history, even though he may not have actually written a single line of code himself.

Likewise, the engineer who came up with the software keyboard design did so only because Steve Jobs was there to tell him precisely what he had to do. He was good at his job (software design), but likely would not have been able to come up with the design of the iPhone in a million years.

So to answer your question, I would say that Tim Cook is smarter than the other executives at the things that he needs to be better at. He can't design like Jony Ive, and that's fine, because that's what Jony Ive is around for. It doesn't look like he can code either, and that's why they have Craig Federighi and his department overseeing software. He probably has zero connections with the music industry, so that's where Eddy Cue comes in.

That's how a team works, no? You hire a team to do the things they do best so you can be freed up to focus on what you do best. I don't care say that Tim Cook is the best CEO there is and that there isn't anyone else who could have done a better job, but looking at how much Apple has grown since Steve Job's death, it's hard to argue with the results.

Credit where credit is due.
Click to expand...

(Credit where credit is due) * (your relative level in the food chain)

-FTFY
 
Tim looking out for Tim. Not a surprise. It the business world. Whoever has the most wins.
 
PickUrPoison said:
Taxed as ordinary income when shares vest is true for Cook and others who receive awards of restricted stock. However, in the more general case of employee stock option plans, taxes aren’t due until the option exercise date (or maybe not even until the underlying shares are actually sold), not at the vesting date.

There can be other tax advantages depending on whether the options are qualified incentive stock options or non-qualified. ISOs are potentially taxed as long term capital gains and taxes aren’t due until the underlying share are sold, if certain conditions are met. (They are still subject to Alternative Minimum Tax however.) Non-quals are taxed as ordinary income at the time of exercise.
Click to expand...
He probably gets RSUs rather than options otherwise he is not being paid enough to be able to afford the options.
 
V_Man said:
Tim looking out for Tim. Not a surprise. It the business world. Whoever has the most wins.
Click to expand...

A CEO looking out for shareholders and getting compensated for exactly that, what a surprise. You do realize the point of a CEO is to maximize shareholder returns right? That's also why most of a CEO's compensation is in stock.
 
dmaxdmax said:
Wow. I’m pretty cynical and even I think this is really cynical.
Click to expand...

But if your honest with yourself. It’s true.
[automerge]1578243649[/automerge]
Strelok said:
A CEO looking out for shareholders and getting compensated for exactly that, what a surprise. You do realize the point of a CEO is to maximize shareholder returns right? That's also why most of a CEO's compensation is in stock.
Click to expand...

Never said it was wrong. He doing what he’s supposed to do. Make money.
 
V_Man said:
Absolutely. Everyone is looking out for themselves. This is the real world.
Click to expand...
Cook isn’t merely looking out for his own interests, he’s looking out for all shareholders. There are tens of millions of them, and their interests are aligned with Cook’s (and his with theirs). That’s why boards of directors compensate top executives mostly with the future value of company stock.

Under Cook’s management, Apple made almost $600 billion for shareholders last year, and for that Cook was paid over $100 million. (Is he underpaid? Arguably, he’s hugely underpaid.)

And continuing to make products that customers love—customer satisfaction with Apple’s products is through the roof—will continue to increase shareholder value into the future.

That’s not just Cook looking out for himself, is it? Everybody wins, right? :)
 
Last edited:
delta0 said:
He probably gets RSUs rather than options otherwise he is not being paid enough to be able to afford the options.
Click to expand...
They are RSUs, but even with a traditional employee stock option plan, participants can execute a same-day sale, where the options are exercised and (at least) enough of the underlying shares are immediately sold to pay the taxes and broker fees due. The shares sold will be taxed as ordinary income, since the holding period to qualify for a long-term capital gain would not be satisfied.

(In the case of an employee highly compensated with ISOs, the vast majority of shares would be re-characterized as non-qualified due to the $100,000 rule. Non-quals aren’t eligible for long term cap gains treatment in any case.)
 
Last edited:
PickUrPoison said:
Cook isn’t merely looking out for his own interests, he’s looking out for all shareholders. There are tens of millions of them, and their interests are aligned with Cook’s (and his with theirs). That’s why boards of directors compensate top executives mostly with the future value of company stock.

Under Cook’s management, Apple made almost $600 billion for shareholders last year, and for that Cook was paid over $100 million. (Is he underpaid? Arguably, he’s hugely underpaid.)

And continuing to make products that customers love—customer satisfaction with Apple’s products is through the roof—will continue to increase shareholder value into the future.

That’s not just Cook looking out for himself, is it? Everybody wins, right? :)
Click to expand...

Yes if you own Apple he’s looking out for you as a stockholder. Why are you trying to make more of my post. It seems like your trying to defend his salary and benefits.
 
Cycom said:
No wonder timmy always has that smug, poop eating grin.
Click to expand...
You be smiling too, if you were so effective at your job that your boss gave you a hundred million dollars.

But I can understand that it may seem unfair to those who may not understand why extremely valuable employees are so well compensated.

That money is earned, and no one is entitled to a huge payday without commensurate performance.

Luckily for all shareholders, Cook’s performance was outstanding last year, with hundreds of billions of dollars added to the market cap :)

Thanks Timmy!!
 
V_Man said:
Yes if you own Apple he’s looking out for you as a stockholder. Why are you trying to make more of my post. It seems like your trying to defend his salary and benefits.
Click to expand...
You said “Tim looking out for Tim. Not a surprise. It the business world. Whoever has the most wins.” But that’s only part of the story, isn’t it? At least you now admit Cook isn’t just looking out for himself, he’s looking out for all shareholders. We’re making progress.

However, even in your latest reply, you still refuse to acknowledge that by coupling his compensation to the company’s performance, customers as well as shareholders benefit.

By offering products and services that satisfy more and more customers, revenue—and profits, if Cook does his job well—will increase in the future. That’s the engine powering a higher share price.

By tying his compensation to the performance of the company’s stock, the board incentivizes Cook and others to do what’s best for both customers and shareholders (including himself).

re: discussion of whether Cook’s salary, benefits and stock awards are too low, that’s a discussion we can have as well, if you’d like. As I mentioned in my last post, having increased shareholder value by upwards of $600 billion last year, Cook’s total compensation of $125 million does seem quite small at just 0.02% of that increase. Maybe he deserves 1%, that would be $6 billion.
 
Ok. I don’t think it’s worth this much effort discussing TC salary. You seem fixated on defending it. I’m happy that he makes millions. He earned them.
 
The question isn’t whether he worked x times harder than joe employee it’s how much value he added to the company. It is inarguable cook added well more than 11 million in value to apple this year. He’s making as much as an above average NBA player cook is an enormous bargain to apple and it’s shareholders.
 
Abazigal said:
Share buyback benefits everyone who holds Apple stock. Paying out more dividends would simply cause the shareholders to have to pay more tax, while a higher share price would still allow them to defer their taxable income to a time of their choosing (ie: when they do finally decide to sell their stock).

Past a certain point, I don't think throwing more money at R&D is going to yield better results. It would simply be throwing good money after bad.

As for lowering prices, Apple's margins have actually decreased in recent years.

And I am going to assume that Apple pays its staff competitive wages.

At the end of the day, Apple's ability to grab monopoly-like share of profits in the respective markets isn’t a result of there being an Apple Tax, but rather borne out of a design-led product strategy that ultimately marginalises entire industries.
Click to expand...

throwing good money after bad? That’s what Apple needs to do ... Dells XPS 13” models just got refreshed with ddr4 running at 3100mhz ram look what Apple has it’s sad really. Mac Pro finally got a much needed performance replacement as well as Mac mini but the lineup should have all gotten upgrades before nye.
 
People who complain that Apple isn’t competing with dell on middle of the road consumer desktop towers just don’t understand that those are a niche market now and Apple is a for profit company.
 
Abazigal said:
Haha. The other thread on Apple's stock price hasn't even cooled down and here's another article that's going to rile up the haters who think that Apple has lost its way.

But I do concur with @I7guy that Tim Cook has earned every penny. Different people are needed at different points in a company history. Jobs was right for his era, but I maintain that he would have been a disaster for the Cook era. Cook is amazing, and has been responsible for most of the achievements of Apple, albeit not the initial innovation and concept that Jobs provided. Rather, what Cook has done is refine Apple's culture and expanded it, and has done as fine a job as any CEO in American history, if not world business history.
Click to expand...

Apple would not exist without Steve Jobs, so I'm not clear on your point. Both when Jobs founded the company and when he resurrected the company.

At best, Cook is a placeholder -- saying the word "innovation" no more makes one an innovator than my standing in a garage makes me a car.
 
  • Disagree
Reactions: Jony Quest
windowsblowsass said:
People who complain that Apple isn’t competing with dell on middle of the road consumer desktop towers just don’t understand that those are a niche market now and Apple is a for profit company.
Click to expand...
The best middle of the line consumer product is an upscale product that lasts twice as long.
 
mac 2005 said:
Apple would not exist without Steve Jobs, so I'm not clear on your point. Both when Jobs founded the company and when he resurrected the company.

At best, Cook is a placeholder -- saying the word "innovation" no more makes one an innovator than my standing in a garage makes me a car.
Click to expand...
Cook is a placeholder who has earned his place alongside of Steve Jobs. He will be remembered, IMO, for the way he turned Apple into a behemoth.

as far as innovation, it’s a personal, moving definition.
 
I’m not sure if there’s more hate for Cook, or hate for people who don’t hate Cook.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back