He "plans" to give the money to charity. That sounds nice it must be gratifying to get the nods from making such a statement. Decades ago Bill Gates said he would give almost all his wealth to charities. In that time he has made huge contributions through his tax-exempt foundation to corporations involved in clean water and malaria research etc. That sounded great too... but he has become richer and richer every year since. Meanwhile millions of folks in the USA alone cannot access safe drinking water. This has been a public relations stunt for his "look at me" project. It seems the same is happening with Mr Cook. No time like the present Mr Cook: start unloading the wealth to good causes... or just make a statement that you "plan" to. Sounds "good." There's a reason that the institution of a corporation has been likened to the personality of a sociopath and these guys know it.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook's Net Worth Exceeds $1 Billion as Apple's Stock Soars
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Tim Cook donates money every year to multiple charities. That he doesn't make a big deal about it speaks volumes. And he certainly isn't required to answer to you or anyone else with respect to how he goes about that.
Big hat-tip to Mr. Cook and his philanthropy!
How quickly everyone forgets how Tim was supposedly going to tank Apple because nobody could possibly follow Steve Jobs. As you point out, quite the opposite happened.
It amuses me every year when people call for Tim Cook to be fired, as the stock continues to soar. To anyone who thinks he should be fired, name someone who would have done better than this.
Only the founders of companies desrve that kind of growth because they own the company.
Publicly traded companies have no business paying one employee 2000x what the lowest slurred employee makes.
Jeff Bezos gets his value from owning the growth company he founded.
If he went on to be hired as a CEO of another company he wouldn't deserve an obscene salary.
But it's an old boys network. They all sit on boards and approve the money for their buddies.
Remember when Steve Jobs died and he took over and quite a bit of people predicted the fall of Apple without Jobs? Yeahhhh about that.
Why do you feel the need or compulsion to defend Mr. Cook when someone speaks badly of him or Apple?
As this is a discussion forum, it's called offering a different view. Rather than letting my two cents get you wound up so much, perhaps you can muster up a view of your own?
Seems normal to want to set the record straight if someone thinks it needs it. Not weighing in either way, but it seems like a perfectly unobjectionable comment.
I see your point but as this poster probably doesn't work for Cook he seems to rarely let a comment negative to Cook or Apple go without commenting. But its a free world and as long as some folks live and die by the value of APPL, good for them.
I get why people dislike him. Apple is a lot less exciting now.. but his job isn't to be exciting. It's to make the most money possible.
Fantastic post! I have been preaching this for 2+ decades. Private companies can do whatever they want.
My recommendation for publicly traded companies who have non-founding CEOs is that the CEO should cap out at 25 Million a year. Also, although it would be difficult to calculate and regulate, I would push that publicly-traded companies keep a "rainy day" fund of X millions of dollars to keep their staff at 100% salary (not bonuses) for 1 full year should times turn hard. For example, if the company employees 1000 people and the payroll salary for the year is $100 million (again, no bonuses), then the company needs to keep $100 million in cash somewhere to ensure that if, for example, people stop buying their products that the company has 12 months at full employment to turn the ship around. Nobody is fired/laid off in that 12 months. Both employees and employers would be wise to re-invest, re-tool, etc. the staff and company during this 12 months. After 12 months, layoffs come. Maybe this policy is only in place once every 5 years. So if the rainy day fund is used up in 2021, the company doesn't have to fill up the rainy day fund again until 2026. I don't have a perfect answer, but I'm sure some people could work on such a policy for a few months and figure it out.
Haha, it’s so funny you think you can stop businesses with some silly politician asking stupid questions and getting owned.
Apple’s size has been achieved without a dominant position in any market. Good luck stopping them and their influence.
Tim Cook is the leader of a nearly $2T business. A billion dollars in equity was WELL earned. You aren’t familiar with business if you think leaders don’t matter.
Of course the team deserves credit and they were paid well too in accordance to the value they added on an individual basis. No one person can do it all, but the right. EP matters A LOT. Just look at the mismanaged companies...like IBM, HP, INTC as of late...all bad CEOs.
Accept he has never earned it. He's just a front man and has not done anything of merit. Steve Jobs was the guy along with Steve, Rod, Jef and others, but Tim is just a glitz salesman feasting of the innovation of the past, which is NOT what the Mac team were about. Yes they introduced the GUI (originally from Xerox), but it was about making it easy to do a job, rather than just to look glitzy.
The whole persona of Apple has changed so much. Even on Macrumours, how much focuses on the computers and what they can do and how easy they can do it, rather than how much focus is their on the glitz.
That is obscene. So many impoverished people suffering lives of severe hardship, so few with stupefying wealth. What a f****d up world we live in..
Probably nobody can do better. Apple is a big ship now, and startup CEOs aren't meant for that. Needs someone who will maintain course, that's it. Can't blame people for wanting more excitement, but calling for firing is ridiculous.
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Money doesn't translate to clean drinking water. It's about political power. Mr. Bloomberg proved that money doesn't automatically buy that either. So if Tim Cook is going to really help others with his money, it won't be until after he's stepped down as CEO, since one person can't do both at the same time.
But Cook has done far far more than just maintaining course.
Here are just a few examples:
When it was recognized iPhone growth would eventually slow down years ago, he pushed Apple into services and wearables. And that has kept quarterly earnings vibrant.
Years ago when it became apparent that Apple relying on Intel's CPU roadmap with delays and lackluster incremental performance improvements, he moved Apple into developing its own CPUs. That was a huge undertaking, but will pay off in many ways.
AR is the next frontier for Apple, and pushed by Cook. I suspect that will pay similar dividends.
He also has doubled down on privacy as a marketable corporate attribute, just like green products became a marketable attribute 5-10 years ago. This is an important reason why people seek out and remain in Apple’s ecosystem.