Link to full article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...ml?mod=WSJ_Small+Business_sections_management
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...ml?mod=WSJ_Small+Business_sections_management
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The Wall Street Journal Profiles Apple's Board of Directors
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The last time Jobs was "challenged", Apple ended up with a stock price of less than $6 a share...
Well now that the Wall Street Journal is a tool for Murdoch's News Limited it's probably a bit of a gauge in negotiating, or asserting some corporate matter... for publishing trashy Murdoch content into our beautiful devices... complete with full page splash ads that we never wanted nor paid for...
I would suspect News Corp is run in a simular manner to Apple.
Gosh, I guess i'm to old to understand this stuff....don't the shareholders (all of them) get an opportunity to vote for the directors? Sure the Board usually puts up a slate but that could be challenged IF the shareholders were unhappy
A ++ on your comment - and Boards have been way overrated for many years. My experience with boards is that they consume lots of coffee, eat pastries, attend board retreats at exotic / posh resorts, ask inane questions so as to appear they are doing something, and generally add very little to vision, direction or strategy.
How about a peon lottery?
How about they hold a lottery for one-year terms on the board? Well, I can think different, can't I?
How about they hold a lottery for one-year terms on the board? Well, I can think different, can't I?
I don't think Steve would start thinking about who will run apple without him. I believe apple already has. Steve seems to be a strategist and visionary. These type of guys think very long term. 5-10 years in advanced at least if not triple that. BTW he didn't leave the first time. He got fired or more politely he got voted off by the board. So essentially he who influences the board has safely more or less.
Not sure if AAPL is worth more today. If it is it's only temporary. BRK seems to me more stable as it invests in companies that provide basic products and services like products by fruit of the loom, and drill bits that are used in factories, etc. Apple seems to produce shiny doo dads more then anything else.
It isn't about Steve should have less power. Steve should not have any more power. His role as CEO is to follow the vision of the Board. The board can listen to Steve's vision however in the end its the boards decision. If any CEO out there has a problem with that then they get fired and the CEO can go start his own company after two years.
No, what they need is board members who truly represent ALL shareholders, not just the big and famous ones (Jobs). They are voted into the job by the shareholders. If one director doesn't share the same vision as Jobs, its probably becuase he represents shareholders who feel the same way. If Jobs doesn't like it, too bad. Maybe he's not serving in the best interests of shareholders, regardless of how well the stock has performed lately. If the Board of Directors had a stronger Compensation Committee, maybe Apple wouldn't have gotten some bad press regarding the back-dated stock option grants a few years ago.
Wall Street vs. Apple
Wall Street knows nothing about running a corporation, particularly not one with the DNA of Apple. They're after one thing: dividends. Hey, coupon-cutters, get off your asses and work for a living.
Wall Street knows nothing about running a corporation, particularly not one with the DNA of Apple. They're after one thing: dividends. Hey, coupon-cutters, get off your asses and work for a living.
Could not disagree more - most boards are clueless as to vision and strategy at the level Apple and Steve have performed. Most Boards of Directors fully EXPECT and DEMAND that the CEO and their executive team develop vision, strategy and operational plans for the board's consideration.
Oh, please. First of all, Jobs is not really even a large shareholder in Apple and his shares are restricted. Last time I checked, an investment group is the largest shareholder of Apple (obviously, this could have changed). Second of all, there’s not a corporate board out there that comes anywhere close to representing all shareholders.
In fact, most corporate boards are stacked with directors that are hand-picked by large blocks of activist shareholders like investment groups, equity firms or mutual, union or pension funds and have little to no expertise in the industry the company is operating in.
Personally, as a common AAPL shareholder I’m glad they have a board that shares a cohesive vision. Otherwise, you get in-fighting over which board member wants the company to do what.
A simple look back at Apple during the mid-90’s shows you what an “independent" board gets you.
AAPL is performing now beyond anyone’s expectations. That last thing they need is a Carl Icahn-type of director — no matter how utopian the Wall Street Journal thinks it is to have one.
When you get companies that operate in that way, you get companies that make decisions on what products they make based on the markup they can get and how many units they can sell. You get companies that spend too much time thinking about market share and stock prices.
This is not a good way to run a company.
Correct.Gosh, I guess i'm to old to understand this stuff....don't the shareholders (all of them) get an opportunity to vote for the directors? Sure the Board usually puts up a slate but that could be challenged IF the shareholders were unhappy
The vote took place about a month ago (by proxy) and was followed by the shareholders' meeting (if you wanted to vote your share in person).
The reelection of the directors is by individual. In most elections you can vote "for" or "against" (and sometimes "abstain").
72% of the float is held by institutional investors and no one is going to complain too loudly about the board of directors' makeup because of Apple's superb financial results. Wall Street doesn't complain when investors are laughing themselves to the bank.
Hate to break it to ya, but if a company goes public and has shareholders, then that is exactly what they're supposed to do. A company that doesn't try to do that isn't doing what the owners (shareholders) want them to do - maximize shareholder value. Its nice to think of Apple as a different kind of company, but at the end of the day its a business and the investors who funded it expect the best returns possible. If the management doesn't want to worry about market share and stock price then don't go public or take the company private again.
From yahoo finance a minute ago :
BRK-A Market cap $202.25B
AAPL Market cap $205.52B
So you are not correct either. (Not sure if the BRK-A number includes the BRK-B or not, I think it might. If doesn't then Apple is less. ) The BRK-A P/E is slightly higher though. If go back to before the finance system collapse the BRK was clearly on top. It has been dragged down by the environment but is moving back to where it was.
What kind of revisionist history is that? Jobs got sacked in 1985.
Apple had its biggest stock/valuation run up in that decade after that happened.
The stock somewhat plateaued after than till the mid 90s when it tanked (in part due to board putting some bad leadership into position. ) Jobs was back at Apple for several (approx 3) years before the stock price got back to where it was in the early 90s.
Companies can always find some room for improvement. Complacency leads to problems. In fact that is the problem they had in the 90s. Apple was full of itself and paid little attention to several important trends and issues.
Really? So Global Foundary's (exAMD ) new top of the line, multibillon dollar fab in New York is just a mirage? And Intel's fabs in New Mexico and Org... multibillion dollar mirages too.
Packaged consumers electronics ? Yes, the majority of that sold retail has been shipped overseas (there is much more that is embedded that has not been), but if everyone follows that same model you end up with zero manufacturing base left here in the US. Zero manufacturing means the economy will tank. There is no way a service sector survives without any manufacturing base (aside from raw farm and natural products output).
Everybody can't charge 40% markup and sit on billions of dollars that they might possibly invest in the future if they feel like it. Apple has a luxury of being able to cherry pick what they do. All of the companies in an economy won't get that option, so they won't be able to copy all of the things that Apple is doing.
Running a company for short term profit is a very fast way to run yourself out of business. You might have a short term blip in shareholder value. Long term your stock will be worth little to nothing.
Smart management will pay some attention to short term profitability. It is hard to make money 10 years from now if you are no longer in business. Smart management never puts short term profit above long term strategy.
When smart management is deciding what products to sell, they will pick ones that will make a profit. More importantly, they will pick products that will give their companies new skills and capabilities to make more profitable products in the future.
Some members of the Apple board of directors may think the Apple TV is a failure. If so, they are morons. The Apple TV was used to develop the fundamental technologies and partnerships that most Apple products will use for quite some time. The iPhone would not exist in it's current form without the Apple TV. It would be a niche product with trivial market share. The iPad would not have been developed.
Most members of most boards of directors have no vision. It is the responsibility of the visionless to get the hell out of the way of those who have sight.