Tim Cook Reaches Five Years as Apple CEO, Unlocks Over $100 Million in Bonuses

[Juicy Box]

Cue the (stealthily homophobic) Cook haters.

Just because someone has something negative to say about Tim Cook's job performance, doesn't mean they are homophobic. But, you know that, don't you.

Why did you start it?
How odd.
Issues?

Because it is what the poster wants.

This is the same type of person that race baits and says "queue the racist post" whenever there is a story about some rapper.

 

[macduke]

Congratulations Tim.

Steve

 

[rimcrazy]

CEO takes big cash bonuse BEFORE a major product announcement and right in time for donations before a major election. Yup, this is the start of Tim's parachute opening. He'll be out of Apple by this time next year.

No, he has not. Options go through 3 phases. They are granted, vested and finally cashed in. His options where granted, given to him, when he took over as CEO of Apple. These options, now, have vested, meaning he COULD cash them in meaning turn stock into $$ if he chooses. He has not done that. His options have simply vested.

and...... has he has not only said but actually done.... he donates and will donate significant portions of his wealth to charity. He has been and continues to be a class act. No, he's not Steve Jobs. The thing I like most about him is he does not try to be Steve. He's Tim Cook. Yes, Steve was a true visionary.... he was also an egotistical *******. Steve did lots of things right, he also did lots of things wrong. All things taken into consideration, Tim's done a good job. Not great but good. Compared to every other Apple CEO, least we forget Scully et.al. were complete bozo's.

Time will tell where things go.

 

[Juicy Box]

Yeah, but the high school crowd complaining here wants a curved screen, ground effects lighting, and VTEC stickers.

VTEC sticker yo!

I get your point,

but I don't think high school kids are into cars anymore like I was in high school. They seem to be more into electronics, and you tube.

In high school, I couldn't wait to drive, so I would wait until my parents were sleeping and "borrow" their cars and pick up my girlfriend and joy ride all night, until we got caught.

20 years later, I offered to teach my son to drive my cars, he is 14, and he has no interest.

He would rather sit at home and watch Doctor Who.

 

[Keane16]

Congrats. You win my "Tim Apologist of the year" for 2016. Incredible effort in that rebuttal. I'll bet you have his picture on a wall somewhere? Eh? Let's see how the 6, 6+ IC Chip Gate plays out. Then you'll see your hero as he really is. All numbers, no ideas.

What did I apologise for? The OP was wrong on nearly every point he made.

Or are you saying I don't like my Apple Watch and iPad Pro? Or that I long for a Lenovo laptop or HTC phone? Please do explain.

 

[mactactic]

This BOZO is so deserving of a swift kick to the ass ! This is what happens when you let a bean counter become CEO !!
I would hire Elon Musk as a temporary CEO ! Then
give it to someone who at least has an imagination and vision for the future of where technology needs to go !
There is no foreseeable paradigm shift in technology right now and that is a sad thing.

 

[Al'sDad]

So Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs is what you're saying...

I think the board (and the rest of the world) recognizes that.

Thing is, would could the board replace Tim with to make that statement any different? T-Mobile's CEO is pretty outspoken and brash, like Steve Jobs was, but I doubt he'd have any more of an eye for creating "magic" (on a regular basis, no less) than Tim Cook does.

I don't equate the "spark" I mentioned with simply being loud mouthed or brash. If that were the case they could hire the Donald after election day.

I'm referring to the creative spark. The obsession with making the user experience force a "Wow" from the user's lips. The obsession with preventing the release of any product, be it hardware or software, before it satisfies the "insanely great" test.

Yes, Steve is long dead and gone, but there are people out there that can bring the spark back. It won't be the same, but at least it will evoke comparable user reactions.

 

[T Coma]

In case you were wondering why Apple charges $100 for an additional 48GB.

 

[SvP]

Imagine where iOS and iPhone\iPad and Mac would be today if his incentive would have been based on marketshare instead of tenure. Longevity pay of any kind is the worst incentive. All it does is encourage someone to just do the bare minimum to keep their job.

Running one of the largest businesses there is, with the songle highest profit marging while competing with simplistic cheap mass market stuff, opening one of the most difficult markets there is, and all that while being measured to only the very best results of the late Steve Jobs, or atleast his god-like image, is to be classified as "doing the bare minimum"... are you really really really saying that?
[doublepost=1472047512][/doublepost]

I don't equate the "spark" I mentioned with simply being loud mouthed or brash. If that were the case they could hire the Donald after election day.

I'm referring to the creative spark. The obsession with making the user experience force a "Wow" from the user's lips. The obsession with preventing the release of any product, be it hardware or software, before it satisfies the "insanely great" test.

Yes, Steve is long dead and gone, but there are people out there that can bring the spark back. It won't be the same, but at least it will evoke comparable user reactions.

The spark for me: having a phone half the power, weight and bulk outrace a brand new "competitor". SPARK.
Don't compare current reality to a fantasy of the past.

 

[MasterRyu2011]

the most underpaid CEO today

 

[jfobear]

In my opinion NO ONE is worth $100+ million - NO ONE. While I do buy and use Apple products, over the past few years they have become much less reliable. There also seems to be less emphasis on making products that "just work".

 

[otternonsense]

"Tim Cook is one of the nicest and most charitable CEOs out there," said Michael Obuchowski, chief investment officer of Apple shareholder Merlin Asset Management. "But by now we've all fully realized that despite all his faults, Steve Jobs was a creative genius and Apple's alleged deep bench doesn't come even close to replacing his ideas and obsession with design."

Someone above had to say it.

 

[rimcrazy]

This BOZO is so deserving of a swift kick to the ass ! This is what happens when you let a bean counter become CEO !!
I would hire Elon Musk as a temporary CEO ! Then
give it to someone who at least has an imagination and vision for the future of where technology needs to go !
There is no foreseeable paradigm shift in technology right now and that is a sad thing.

Ah no... Tim's background is not accounting, assuming that is what you are referring to as "bean counter". Tim's background is operations, which in a company such as Apple, is probably one of the single most difficult jobs one can have. That job, on a day to day, month to month basis is the single most responsible job for delivering product to be sold. All of you nimrods love to sit back and blast Apple for this and that and none of you clearly have any frigging idea the shear magnitude, scope and size of what it takes to do what Apple does. Tim "WAS" the real Apple while Steve was still there. No Tim was not the vision but Tim consistently delivered the goods and made the bottom line.

 

[kingtj]

Arguably so .... but the counter argument is that basing pay on market-share encourages a lot of business decisions that simply boost short-term sales figures while losing sight of the long-term formula of what makes the products superior.

Steve Jobs was never very concerned about Apple's market-share. Back when he was constantly getting ridiculed for Macs only making up 6% to 8% or so of all new PC sales, he kept saying he was happy with that, as long as the product was the best it could be. (If you're a luxury car maker like Lamborghini, you don't worry that you aren't selling anywhere NEAR as many cars as Ford or Chevy. And if you're a gourmet restaurant, you don't worry about growing market-share to compete with Subway or McDonalds.)

Apple has already made compromises to increase its market-share, such as offering its full line of products inside Best Buy stores. Personally, I think that was a good thing because there aren't enough Apple retail stores to ensure one is a close, convenient drive for somebody interested in looking at the products. But every time Apple agrees to such a deal, it loses some control over how the products are presented, explained and sold to customers. It does "cheapen" the brand.

Imagine where iOS and iPhone\iPad and Mac would be today if his incentive would have been based on marketshare instead of tenure. Longevity pay of any kind is the worst incentive. All it does is encourage someone to just do the bare minimum to keep their job.

 

[Maxtoid]

Mac holds less marketshare than ever in history.
iOS sinks to record low marketshare.
iPhone now makes up less marketshare than ever.
iPhone 7 looks like iPhone 6S, and iPhone 6S looks like iPhone 6.
MacBook Pro Line goes nearly 5 years and still no update.
iPad sales lagging industry.

Not a resume I'd want... sure Apple is profitable... but has been stagnant for a while in product. And the reason the company is successful is the coat-tails they're still riding from past successes.

Innovation is the name of the game, and without it, it's a boring and unsuccessful path when it comes to technology.

I rarely get into posts like these... but this post cannot be ignored. Make no mistake, I've been an apple user since the beginning, and I've left for Android several times, only to come back. I acknowledge Apple's shortcomings of late, but to make such blatant inaccuracies in a statement is both irresponsible and downright foolish.

So let's go through these shall we?

Mac holds less marketshare than ever in history.
Well, I suppose if you were born in 2008, then it would hold less now than in YOUR history. That would also explain your comment. If you know anything about the Mac, it rose to glory after the switch to Intel, and the retina models brought it even higher. Yes, it has fallen in the past two years, but that's part of the cycle. Lest you say it's been too long without an update, don't forget that it was 4 years between the release of the Unibody and the Retina, and we're due for an update this year. We're right on track.

iOS sinks to record low marketshare.
iOS is inclusive of the iPad, which still DOMINATES the tablet market by leaps and bounds... more on that later since you felt like roping that in as well. iOS has lost market share to Android thanks to Samsung, and that's part of the main failure on Apple's part. I'll touch on that again in the next section, but to say it's a record low implies that it wasn't lower in 2010, or 2011, or even 2012, which it was. Because prior to the LTE iPhone, iOS market share was quite a bit lower. Fact Check.

iPhone now makes up less marketshare than ever.
I'm really beginning to think that you're just making stuff up because you want to make a point in a post, and you have no idea what you're talking about whatsoever. iPhone sales are declining, but there's no way it holds even close to as small of the marketshare as it did in 2010. Those of us who've had iPhones since the original remember the days when you had one, and you were exited to see someone else who had one, because they were kind of rare. Once again, building into Apple's brand excitement, and the main thing that has fueled Apple's sales over the years. Then, we also remember the day it happened... the day that we realized that it wasn't as exciting to see someone else with an iPhone, because even the 15 year old girls on the subway all had iPhones... it wasn't as special anymore. In order for your statement to be true, we'd have to be back to the days where seeing an iPhone is rare. And while yes, Apple is losing marketshare, we're not even close to that yet. Sorry.

iPhone 7 looks like iPhone 6S, and iPhone 6S looks like iPhone 6.
Believe it or not, it was this part of your statement that provoked me to respond. Every S series has looked just like the model before since the 4S first came to be in 2012. That's called smart product strategy... nothing wrong with the 6S resembling the 6 here...

The iPhone 7 being another 6 iteration is the first shred of evidence you've provided that actually leans towards Apple falling behind. This brings me to what I mentioned earlier, and that is that Apple actually did make a grave mistake in their product planning. Under Tim's leadership, they A) Conformed to what the people thought they wanted, something Jobs never did, Jobs TOLD the people what they wanted, and he was usually right. And B) they became too comfortable being at the top. Apple is now years behind Samsung, not because they don't have the ability to catch up, they can buy whatever innovation they need, but because they became to complacent and confident in the hold of their ecosystem to pay enough attention to those around them, and now that those phones are so far ahead of them, it will take them years to recover from that. I believe they will, because even without jobs, 600 billion on the bank can buy you whatever innovation you need... but it will take time to recover from that mistake. The 2017 ten-year anniversary iPhone will be glorious... we faithful iPhone users just need to wait.

MacBook Pro Line goes nearly 5 years and still no update.
I touched on this earlier so I'm not going to say much, except that 4.16 years does not even come close to "nearly 5 years".... I mean, - Really?? If it were 4.5 years, then rounding up I could understand. 4.25 years, well, that's only 4 and a quarter years... but less than two months into the 4th year doesn't make "nearly 5" in my opinion.

iPad sales lagging industry.
Again, I touched on this earlier so I'm not giving it much here... but if you can show me a tablet that has close to as much market share as the iPad, I'd love to learn more today.

To summarize: Not here to hate, not here to start arguments... it just bothers me as someone who does I.T. for a living and has grown up in this market to see people who don't know what they're talking about run their mouth. I'm also not saying Apple is perfect. I'm the first to admit that they're going to take a long time to recover from the errors I mentioned above... and I almost wish I wasn't SO engrained in their ecosystem, like so many of us are, because for us, the only option is to wait. But trust me, if I didn't think they could come back from this, I would have jumped ship long ago. How do I know they will? Think about it. You don't get to be the richest, most respected tech company in the world without having enough people on the team that can point you back in the right direction when your ship starts to go astray. Also, with as much money as they have, they can buy whatever innovation they need, even without Jobs. Yes, they could never have gotten where they are today without him; and also yes, they probably would be even further ahead if he were still alive, but don't think that they're going down.. because that's just incredibly unlikely.

-Vince

 

[kingtj]

Thankfully, your opinion doesn't mean anything ... because in a Capitalist economy, there are no artificial caps/limits placed on people, dictating the maximum amount of money they're "allowed" to earn.

Historically, it looks like in most cases where individuals have achieved this level of personal wealth, they've felt an urge to give large portions of it back to charities and other causes for the common good. So I wouldn't say there's even much evidence that it's a "bad" thing for everyone when someone DOES get this rich, occasionally.

In my opinion NO ONE is worth $100+ million - NO ONE. While I do buy and use Apple products, over the past few years they have become much less reliable. There also seems to be less emphasis on making products that "just work".

 

[bommai]

This is sickening. It is not just Apple, it is the whole corporate culture. No one, trust me no one, deserves a $100 million pay day.

 

[Razeus]

This man is robbing the company blind.

 

[SoAnyway]

Tim Cook at the helm means Apple has plateaued in terms of innovation and excitement for products. Nothing great has been coming lately and everything coming out is simply a micro evolution of what already exists. I wouldn't be surprised if one day executives like Cook start to cash out an run Apple into the ground and we'll see Apple in the toilet like it was prior to the return of Steve Jobs.

 

[Juicy Box]

MacBook Pro Line goes nearly 5 years and still no update.
I touched on this earlier so I'm not going to say much, except that 4.16 years does not even come close to "nearly 5 years".... I mean, - Really??

I am agreeing or disagreeing with you or the other poster on the main points, but 4.16 years is basically 5 years, nothing wrong with rounding up here.

 

[Karma*Police]

Send some bonuses in the direction of the offshore workers manufacturing all Apple products.

Good idea. You should start by donating your own bonus and set an example for the rest of us.

BTW, Tim worked his ass off to get to where he is, already donated more money than you or I will probably make in the next 10 years and have already pledged to donate the majority of his wealth to people who probably need it more than factory workers, who btw, are considered well off by many villagers' standards.

 

[Jax44]

Samsung is making less money because they're pumping far more money in R&D and their phones are reasonable priced for the technology you get. Don't forget that more then half of the components Apple is using in their iPhones are actually from Samsung.
Also Samsung is making their own camera's, ram, screens while iPhone is glued together with nothing Apple except the A9/10. That's why Apple making that huge profits. When you dive into this matter, there is nothing to be proud of that huge profits and it's a shame they don't give their customers the latest and the greatest with those pricing. I think iPhone 7 will under deliver. It might be faster... But since it's not real multitasking it's subjective... I don't care if my phone is tens of seconds faster. I care about camera quality, screen, overall quality and price. If Apple doesn't make their phones cheaper, they'll lose lots of share. And with less market share third party companies will focus less and less on Apple with their own no compatible cables etc.

More than half from Samsung?.
I don't think so...

 

[rimcrazy]

I am agreeing or disagreeing with you or the other poster on the main points, but 4.16 years is basically 5 years, nothing wrong with rounding up here.

A significant portion of the blame here is Intel not Apple. Intel has so screwed up their CPU line because they could not manufacture the latest processing nodes, that Apple, right or wrong, decided the minuscule bumps Intel made in their CPU's did not justify making major product updates.

 

[mactactic]

Ah no... Tim's background is not accounting, assuming that is what you are referring to as "bean counter". Tim's background is operations, which in a company such as Apple, is probably one of the single most difficult jobs one can have. That job, on a day to day, month to month basis is the single most responsible job for delivering product to be sold. All of you nimrods love to sit back and blast Apple for this and that and none of you clearly have any frigging idea the shear magnitude, scope and size of what it takes to do what Apple does. Tim "WAS" the real Apple while Steve was still there. No Tim was not the vision but Tim consistently delivered the goods and made the bottom line.

I work for Apple ! I have information you don't have ! Nice thought thou !

 

[databaze]

Mac holds less marketshare than ever in history.
iOS sinks to record low marketshare.
iPhone now makes up less marketshare than ever.
iPhone 7 looks like iPhone 6S, and iPhone 6S looks like iPhone 6.
MacBook Pro Line goes nearly 5 years and still no update.
iPad sales lagging industry.

Not a resume I'd want... sure Apple is profitable... but has been stagnant for a while in product. And the reason the company is successful is the coat-tails they're still riding from past successes.

Innovation is the name of the game, and without it, it's a boring and unsuccessful path when it comes to technology.

Don't forget the awful engineering of hardware done to the macbook pro line making it impossible to upgrade/mod & the clusterfun of the ashtray mac pro....