Oh you see - there's something you should know. It's not your money. You gave it to Apple to manage and run their business how they want. If they put something up for a vote to its shareholders - you have your say. But like every other company - it needs a majority to pass.
You weren't forced to donate. Just like you weren't forced to buy stock. Have a nice day.
Actually, I never gave any money to Apple to manage. I bought shares that were originally publicly offered by Apple. In other words, I capitalized Apple in exchange for a proportional share of ownership. Apple is not "managing my money". Apple should be fulfilling it's corporate mandate. The fact that it is a consumer electronics company is entirely relevant. If Apple can think of no worthwhile (profitable) investment to make with it's profits, they should be returned to shareholders and not diverted to out-of-scope schemes. This is corporate governance 101. Now you are right that as a shareholder, my remedy is to vote for better governance if I disagree with it.
Please note that the question I answered is
why I dislike charity contribution matching. Your suggestion that it's not my money (correct), my business (actually it is), and that I should vote (duh) is as useless and irrelevant as it was unsolicited.
Matching contributions is done for goodwill with the employees, not as a cheap PR gimmick.
As far as AAPL not getting involved in charities in Jobs' days, that may have been a principled decision by SJ. Corporations, in their own behalf, really have no business getting involved in charitable contributions. Charitable contributions by corporations really are nothing but advertising/PR deductions, as you noted, the exact opposite of what "charity" is supposed to be. They are hypocritical. However, matching employees' directed contributions really are charitable. Win, win, and not cheap PR.
You are likely correct that Jobs did it in a principled manner, given how unwavering he was about it. And I found that to be the correct policy, likely coming from the same principles.
As for it being for "goodwill" to employees, I prefer they receive their goodwill in cash, though that doesn't get as many newspaper stories written about it as cheap PR stunts.
As for your mentioning deductions, this is the result of poor accounting knowledge among the general public. People think "deducting" something means free money - it doesn't. It means you don't pay tax on it. If I keep $100 and incur $40 in tax for doing so, I have $60 left. If on the other hand I give the $100 away to charity, I incur no tax, but now I have $0 left instead of $60. You don't make money or "cheat" by deducting something, especially a donation. Apple is not being hypocritical, it is being pathetic by engaging in these cheap stunts.
Now I understand your POV, especially as a stockholder, so thanks. I do think it's going a bit too far to call it a cheap PR stunt, though. Matching is a fairly common practice that encourages employees to get involved in rewarding causes outside of work, and employees tend to like it. I remember reading at the time Cook did it that it was a very popular move at Apple, and that employees had wanted it for a long time. In a hyper-competitive job market, where talent retention is key, I find it hard to believe that this policy was anything but a well reasoned strategy to make Apple's benefit compensation commensurate with other top tech firms. Employees might have "dealt" with the lack of matching funds in the past as a small price to pay for working under Steve Job's. After his death, that rationale disappeared.
It also seems funny to me to think of it as if each individual stockholder is being forced to donate to charities they may or may not like. As stockholders, we also indirectly help to pay employees salaries, some of whom have very different political and religious beliefs than us, but I don't feel as though I'm supporting their beliefs against my will because I've given Apple money as a stockholder.
As you correctly pointed out, charity isn't Apple's area of business, but I'd add that employee retention is. And with that in mind, the matching funds policy seems like a relatively small, and wise, post-Steve investment.
Cash is a better inducement for retention, but ultimately retention should be based on core-business, and not irrelevant things. Contribution matching vs cash is not going to be a clincher on anything.
As a stockholder, you have to think of Apple as your company - at least partly so. It's your business. Apple may well be employing people with different political and religious beliefs than us, but at least it is in exchange for their services. Apple is conducting mutually advantageous exchanges of this kind all of the time on our behalf. Many Apple customers fall in the same category. It's one thing to conduct trade. It is another though for Apple to effectively contribute to charities. At that point, I do care to know who my company is contributing to. And I definitely know who I don't want it to. This is totally unaccountable, out-of-scope, and unjustified.
It's the kind of action a company that can't say "buy our product because it is the best", but rather can only muster "buy our products because we donate to charity" to it's customers. Or to it's employees "work for us because we match you contributions to charity" instead of "work for us because you will do amazing things". To the press it is saying "don't listen to all the people bad mouthing us, we donate to charity and are therefore good", rather than "we are the best, and the whiners are just envious".
There is a reason Jobs didn't engage in this nonsense.
