The whole notion that he should receive what "comparable companies" pay is B.S. on several levels. First, there is no comparable company. Second, it's antithetical to capitalism and a free market system. There is no such thing as equality of outcome.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Shareholders Advisory Group Doesn't Want Tim Cook to Get $99 Million Pay Package
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Wait, did you notice that your Username is „MakeAppleAwesomeAgain“?
Please tell me how boring is bad. Outside of shareholder metrics, boring is good. Boring is tried and true. Boring works.
There’s a lot of excitement going on in the world right now. In almost every sphere, I’d gladly settle for boring.
This ^^
That right there is the answer
Society will continue to break down, perhaps irrevocably, if we continue to let there be no guardrails on the top side -- ever -- for anyone (which is effectively how it is now).
People get so rich that it's well beyond anything useful or needed (by 50x or more) and their capital ends up getting used to distort systems and outcomes for others all across the society.
It's a mess.
Success is amazing... but letting it go completely unrestrained on the upside just destroys the very society we all thought we loved.
This.
As an investor, I'm glad he increases my profits and he certainly deserves a good pay for it. But how good is too good? I'd like to see some of those $99m turn into increased dividend for investors rather than an insane salary for the guy who runs the show for investors.
So don't pay employees more... (the people actually doing the real work of value in this equation)
...but just give more to investors?
???
And we wonder why this country is so fractured..
Amusing. The slow course of justice is often overtaken by events. Since the filing of that suit the value of those shares has more than tripled (down 8%, up by over 150%).
It would be interesting to know whether the "loss" on that 8% drop is a realized loss (the pension funds actually sold shares at the depressed price), or whether those shares remained in the funds' hands. Were I a pensioner I'd wonder whether those pension managers sold at a panic over a 8% loss, when share prices tend to swing by 1-2% on a daily basis (what, then, did they do during the COVID Crash of 2020?). As conservative investors know, slow and steady/buy-and-hold wins the race. Constant churning of a portfolio tends to be counter-productive and in excess portfolio churn raises doubts about the motivation of the fund managers.
I'm not sure whether any of that would have a bearing on the legal standing of the suit. If proven to be an intentional mis-statement, an intentional mis-statement is an intentional mis-statement, regardless of whether, "All's well that ends well." Punitive damages might be assessed even if there is no longstanding material harm.
There's also the sticky issue of proving that the decline in value was due solely to the alleged mis-statement about the China business.
For that matter, when, "The suit notes the poor performance of the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR, the company's best iPhones at the time, stating that they were too expensive for many Chinese customers and didn't offer significant upgrades to the previous model," the plaintiffs are making claims that are difficult or impossible to substantiate. It's the sort of stuff that's bandied about in news reporting and internet forums.
One can argue that Apple's products are always "too expensive for many Chinese customers," and you can substitute UK, US, and many other nations for "Chinese" in that statement. Apple has never tried to sell anything at an "affordable" or mass-market price. Hence the high profit margins on the smaller number of goods it does sell. When a country has China's population, the relatively small percentage that can easily afford Apple's products is still a huge market. Given a choice between selling to a smaller percentage of China's 1.4 billion vs selling to even 100% of Swizerland's 8.6 million, which market would you choose? In 2017 it was estimated there were nearly 230 million iPhones in use in China (over 15% of the population). As of late 2021 that estimate was up to over 20%, despite the existence of much cheaper competitors.
Second-guessing of management's marketing or design decisions is rarely upheld in shareholder suits. Such actions have to rise to the level of malfeasance for the courts to take action. Anything less is just second-guessing a "good faith decision." Shareholders get to benefit by the good decisions; they also get to share in the poor decisions.
Overall, the question is what is the true magnitude of the harm done, should damages actually be assessed. And in the case that damages are due, I suggest they be paid in Apple stock. ;-)
I too wish Tim would retire this year. Jeff is more than ready to take over.
Then Tim should take a year off, rest up and re-energize.
After that, I would like to request that Tim announce his run for the presidency of the United States.
He would be SOOOOOOO far better than our last x-number of presidents.
Tim is level headed, smart as hell and a terrific businessman. People love him.
If you don't think Tim is savvy enough to handle the politics, think again.
And of course, he is wealthy enough not to be influenced by the big-money donors and lobbyists.
Not sure if Tim is a Republican, Democrat or Independent. Each of those groups would be foolish to turn him down.
Please Tim, think seriously about saving our country from the infighting that will crush us.
Then Tim should take a year off, rest up and re-energize.
After that, I would like to request that Tim announce his run for the presidency of the United States.
He would be SOOOOOOO far better than our last x-number of presidents.
Tim is level headed, smart as hell and a terrific businessman. People love him.
If you don't think Tim is savvy enough to handle the politics, think again.
And of course, he is wealthy enough not to be influenced by the big-money donors and lobbyists.
Not sure if Tim is a Republican, Democrat or Independent. Each of those groups would be foolish to turn him down.
Please Tim, think seriously about saving our country from the infighting that will crush us.
It’s not an either or proposition. But yes, this post gives some insight into why some believe the country is fractured.
Exactly so none of those compare in terms of revenue or profit margin so I’m still confused it’s not Apples to Apples?!
Personally, I have mixed feelings about this. Overall, do I feel that US management compensation is grossly out of step? Absolutely. There are far too many CEOs being paid huge sums for mediocre performance while rank-and-file wages have been stagnant or declining in purchasing power.
However, from an investor's standpoint Tim Cook's performance has been stellar. We Apple fans may quibble about design decisions and such, but the company's fiscal performance and stock market returns are top flight which is, after all, what a CEO is paid for.
So do I consider a $99 million, multi-year, performance-based compensation plan to be out of line when compared to what other CEOs are getting? No. Certainly not when I look at the value of my Apple shares.
Still, I have no problem with the ISS action, as I have no real issue with their overall goal of reducing executive compensation across the board. Bringing their motion to Apple's shareholders gets ISS' cause a lot of attention, just as $99 million gets anyone's attention.
But in the end, if by ISS' efforts overall CEO compensation was cut in half, $49.5 million would still be a very large number, and distributing the other $49.5 million to Apple's employees and/or shareholders wouldn't make any of them appreciably better off. The real improvement in the social/economic environment comes with an overall change to income spread - not just the conspicuous compensation of working CEOs (or sports stars and other entertainers who are, after all, workers), but of the gross income/wealth imbalance between the average worker and the top 2% - idle rich, ownership class, etc.
However, from an investor's standpoint Tim Cook's performance has been stellar. We Apple fans may quibble about design decisions and such, but the company's fiscal performance and stock market returns are top flight which is, after all, what a CEO is paid for.
So do I consider a $99 million, multi-year, performance-based compensation plan to be out of line when compared to what other CEOs are getting? No. Certainly not when I look at the value of my Apple shares.
Still, I have no problem with the ISS action, as I have no real issue with their overall goal of reducing executive compensation across the board. Bringing their motion to Apple's shareholders gets ISS' cause a lot of attention, just as $99 million gets anyone's attention.
But in the end, if by ISS' efforts overall CEO compensation was cut in half, $49.5 million would still be a very large number, and distributing the other $49.5 million to Apple's employees and/or shareholders wouldn't make any of them appreciably better off. The real improvement in the social/economic environment comes with an overall change to income spread - not just the conspicuous compensation of working CEOs (or sports stars and other entertainers who are, after all, workers), but of the gross income/wealth imbalance between the average worker and the top 2% - idle rich, ownership class, etc.
I don't agree, but even if I did, if you do the math, it would be less than $0.01 per shareholder IF Tim gave up his ENTIRE salary. So not exactly worth it.
(based on Apple having 16.32 Billion outstanding shares, per Yahoo Finance)
Let's be perfectly honest here. That is an obscene amount of money to be paying any executive (when he is isn't the absolute owner of the company). It is an amount of money that sums up all that is wrong in the world. Happy for him to be paid really well, but 99Million - really ? Of course a decent amount will go in taxes (I hope), but he is not exactly poor to start with. There is a certain level of wealth that takes you into God like status and in my view is totally wrong and undermining of the whole of society where so many are undervalued. And I strongly believe in capitalism, but with a degree of conscience...
And I wonder why. Perhaps because they don’t want to pay anyone a decent wage?
Nonetheless, Apple has the power to make sure those employees get a bonus after every product release.
Do you know what the manufacturing partners pay their employees and what are comparable wages?
How do you know they don’t get a bonus?
CNN had a article on this topic today.
Some interesting comments:
"But one influential shareholder rights group has some issues with Cook getting that big of a payday." (referring to ISS)
"Shareholders rarely vote against proposals that a company recommends for approval, although activists have been able to win some converts in recent years"
"In 2021, investors voted against executive pay packages at Intel (INTC), General Electric (GE) and CNN owner AT&T (T). These votes were largely symbolic, and boards are not obligated to change compensation plans even if shareholders reject them."
Some interesting comments:
"But one influential shareholder rights group has some issues with Cook getting that big of a payday." (referring to ISS)
"Shareholders rarely vote against proposals that a company recommends for approval, although activists have been able to win some converts in recent years"
"In 2021, investors voted against executive pay packages at Intel (INTC), General Electric (GE) and CNN owner AT&T (T). These votes were largely symbolic, and boards are not obligated to change compensation plans even if shareholders reject them."
You're obviously wrong. First off, expecting the same compensation on all levels is nonsense. Higher position, higher pay. That's how it's always been, that's how it's always gonna be. Don't like it? Go start your own company and do it after him.
Second, no, Tim isn't the best paid CEO. Not by a long shot.
Third, even if he was, thad'd be completely rightfully so, as he's leading the most valuable company on the planet, so it'd be only logical.
We are now at society destroying levels of unchecked capitalism.
It’s always “do more of the bad stuff, but get YOURS!”
The system is the problem at this point.
Capitalism isn’t some “law of nature”..
It was created by humans and needs dramatic reform and reigning in…by humans
It’s always “do more of the bad stuff, but get YOURS!”
The system is the problem at this point.
Capitalism isn’t some “law of nature”..
It was created by humans and needs dramatic reform and reigning in…by humans
This is not “unchecked capitalism.” This bonus is a reward for a job well done. It’s clear some dont like it, and if you are not a shareholder..not much one can do except voice an opinion here. If you are a shareholder there is a process.
I am sure apple designer and engineers and in-between do get very healthy compensation packages in absolute dollar terms. What kind of lifestyle it buys them in the cities they stay, with the rents, house ownership costs, commute, etc. is a different discussion.
How about "giving" it to his own Retail employees.
$10 million is way too much, but $99 million is out of this world obscene. Is he worth it, 100% not. The US is slowly being destroyed with absolute greed from within.