if this was tax payer's money that was used to pay this bonus I would completely agree with you. However Apple are a private company who recieve no government money. They can pay what ever bonus they see fit.
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Tim Cook Receives Bonus of $5 Million and Stock for Performance During Jobs' Absence
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if this was tax payer's money that was used to pay this bonus I would completely agree with you. However Apple are a private company who recieve no government money. They can pay what ever bonus they see fit.
Apple have given up on the Pro market. Just look at Aperture 3: It's a glorified "iPhoto Extended". I doubt that professional photographers care for "Faces" and soundtrack(!!!!) features. What are soundtrack features doing in a photography(!) application anyway?
I'm currently trying to sort 10,000 photos by date, meaning that I want to have folders for the years, months and dates - and I don't mean "smart folder" crap. Guess what? Aperture 2 can't do it when the pictures are already imported. You have to do it manually. Now somehow I'd expect a professional database software for photos to be able to do something as trivial as that out of the box. But no, we rather make Aperture an Garageband/iMovie mix instead of writing features that the original target audience would find useful.
Yes, Apple is selling more Macs than in the years before. But they are no longer selling Macs to professional users; those Macs that they are selling now are consumer class computers sold to consumers.
They even indirectly say Apeture expands on iPhoto.
Well thats the impression I get anyway.
So 32GB, Octocore CPU Computer with the option of a 285 or Quadro4800FX isnt Pro anymore? Where have I been? In a coma where computers were worse than they actually are?
No, Government intervention in the housing market, requirements that the banks lower their standards for lending to include people who could not in reality afford home ownership, and incentivising the lending market to make more and more risky lending decisions, and allowing those risky lending decisions to be bundled and sold as if they were much safer investments. Government intervention is at the root of our economic problems.
For many bankers, pay is incentive based. A relatively low base salary, with plenty of opportunity to earn more that is keyed to rewarding for results (sales of products). Take away that incentive structure and those sales people will follow the available money to another opportunity.
Banks are also private companies, but first they ruined the world economy, then they got saved with public money and then the bank managers paid themselves millions of bonuses. The French and the Russian revolutions started for similar reasons, and as we all know, history tends to repeat itself because ignorant people do not learn from it.
Hah, Of course the government is the root of all our problems.
Once again...
Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie, wether it be stuff or money.
Did you hear what the Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi said?...
I read the following... pretty interesting... point/counter-point...
"Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or, eh, a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance, or that people could start a business and be entrepreneurial and take risk but not [be] job-locked because a child has asthma or someone in the family is bipolar. You name it. Any condition is job-blocking."
'So this is what the Democrats are fighting for. They're fighting for you not to have a job and still have health care so you can pursue your entrepreneurial risk of writing, painting, taking pictures. It's just such a pain in the rear end to have to have a job. It's so damn mean of this country to require people to have a job. It stifles people. It stifles creativity and economic growth to require people to have a job, to have health care. What a country. Man, are we horribly rotten mean to people. So Pelosi says go ahead, health care will allow people to quit their jobs and write, take pictures and paint while the rest of us work to pay for it.' - RL
I dont live in America nor does that effect me, I have no grounds to make judgement. You can have Universal Health Care (What Obamas proposals arent, to call them remotely 'Socialist' is a joke) and unemployed/employed/self employed people.
Glad to hear it--not only for Mr Cook personally but also as a sign that someone else can indeed take the helm if needed.
It's not how long you work.It's How valuable you are to the company.Also the amount of responsibility you take on.What would you demand to take all or most of the responsibility for running Apple for most of a year?
Why is it so hard for people to get?A product is worth the exact amount someone is willing to pay.A worker is worth the exact amount an employer is willing to pay.Anyone can flip burgers.Many can be shift manager.Lots can manage a Wendy's.Quite a few can be district manager.But only one Dave Thomas could create and built the company to a success.
Each step requires training,education,and intelligence.
At each step there are fewer people qualified.
Hello economics 101!Supply and demand.
And don't give me that teacher vs baseball player crap.
If qualified teachers were as rare as top flight players they'd make a lot more.
Many of those bonuses were required under contracts arranged before the problem started.Specifically the AIG bonuses were promised in order to retain talented people to shut down the troubled divisions.They received NO salary!Just a bonus if they stayed and worked their asses off for a year.
There is so much ignorance and demagoguery on the subject of compensation by politicians who want everyone to ignore their own complicity in this mess and their lap dogs in the press that we will probably end up with regulations that cause even worse problems.
Finally,consider this:
A man in a far off city receives a large bonus.EXACTLY how is your life impacted?
Answer:
Not at all.
The true irony is that while people whine about bonuses that are microscopic compared to the ill-advised bailouts,Western governments are speeding like a runaway Toyota toward the cliff of bankruptcy.
Take a good long look at Greece.That's our future,and it's much closer than many believe.
Yes but he got just about 5+x more than most CEOs in a YEAR. Therefore tim is worth 10x more to Apple than SJ?
Our lives are impacted because resources are taken away from something that actually could matter. For every event there are infinite other events that couldve of happened in a parallel universe and you would never know.
actually alot of things were worked on while Tim Cook was acting CEO
major cutbacks at apple retail, where they continued to reinvest in opening stores. but cutback in their staffing. under Cook, he mandated them cutback their senior retail staff because they got paid more. if you notice, many of the senior people were systematically removed from their positions. so that many of the types of people are younger and cheaper. this is a big weakness. When Steve Jobs came back, he tried to adjust back a lil, but it didn't work. much of the damage was done.
Cook is a PC type numbers and infrastrcture guy. so lets hope he doesn't get given the promotion to be #2 to Jobs, he doesn't have the same vision as Steve.
Excessive!
I appreciate he works hard... But $5mill - I'm sure he enjoys his job.
You'd think if they paid him a little less they could make the products a little cheaper or pay the people in the factories putting the machines together a little more?
Don't get me wrong I love the products... had em for years now.
But recently I've lost sleep and I've become aware that the logo resembles the 'Apple' in the garden of Eden - have we all been led into temptation in buying these Shiny product lol ...no serious
I appreciate he works hard... But $5mill - I'm sure he enjoys his job.
You'd think if they paid him a little less they could make the products a little cheaper or pay the people in the factories putting the machines together a little more?
Don't get me wrong I love the products... had em for years now.
But recently I've lost sleep and I've become aware that the logo resembles the 'Apple' in the garden of Eden - have we all been led into temptation in buying these Shiny product lol ...no serious
According to the SEC filing, Cook's salary is $700,000. You really think a 1% bonus is interesting to him? When you get to be an executive, variable compensation becomes a big piece of how you get paid, and is often significantly larger than your base salary. Company does well, so do you. Company doesn't do well, you do not. What "does well" mean is set by the board and it doesn't have to be profits--it can be hitting any kind of milestones that the board is interested in.
The guy has a very senior position in Apple, of course he should receive a large bonus and stock options for success in Gollums absence.
His job is not comparable to some monkey who works in a supermarket. His job will come with huge pressure and he gets rewarded for that hard work.
$5mil is beyond comprehension for most people but its not exactly unusual in corporations such as apple.
His job is not comparable to some monkey who works in a supermarket. His job will come with huge pressure and he gets rewarded for that hard work.
$5mil is beyond comprehension for most people but its not exactly unusual in corporations such as apple.
Concentration of Wealth
It is one of the great achievements of modern propaganda that so many in the working class will defend, even praise, a system that exploits their labor for the benefit of the few. As worker productivity rises, more and more wealth is concentrated in the top 1% of the population. They control the government and the economic system. They will continue to harvest the human and natural resources of the US, and eventually the world, as long as the working class allow it.
Comments like the above..."totally deserved," used to shock me, but with acceptance of our decline, only tend to amuse me now. This isn't directed at Apple or the undisputed fact that the company is doing well, this is about the triumph of social engineering that has allowed the rich to convince the average guy on the street to feel that a single human being "deserves" over $20 MILLION DOLLARS in one year, for presiding over hundreds of engineers, programmers, manufacturing and sales workers who actually performed the labor.
As American influence strengthens in Europe and the rest of the world, I would like to issue a warning and an apology to our global neighbors: American corporations will not stop until they have raped your economies as well - you will eventually be slaves to corporate America as we are.
It is one of the great achievements of modern propaganda that so many in the working class will defend, even praise, a system that exploits their labor for the benefit of the few. As worker productivity rises, more and more wealth is concentrated in the top 1% of the population. They control the government and the economic system. They will continue to harvest the human and natural resources of the US, and eventually the world, as long as the working class allow it.
Comments like the above..."totally deserved," used to shock me, but with acceptance of our decline, only tend to amuse me now. This isn't directed at Apple or the undisputed fact that the company is doing well, this is about the triumph of social engineering that has allowed the rich to convince the average guy on the street to feel that a single human being "deserves" over $20 MILLION DOLLARS in one year, for presiding over hundreds of engineers, programmers, manufacturing and sales workers who actually performed the labor.
As American influence strengthens in Europe and the rest of the world, I would like to issue a warning and an apology to our global neighbors: American corporations will not stop until they have raped your economies as well - you will eventually be slaves to corporate America as we are.
STAND! Very well stated. I used to be one of them, one of the masses that would defend capitalism and Ayn Rand objectivism tooth and nail. However, having had the benefit of a global education, of living in many different countries and experiencing many differing cultures, after having a father who was an investment banker, after having experienced both sides of the corporate/capitalist culture, it's a complete misconception that capitalism "works".
Something I've always pondered: a woman who comes from a broken home, is divorced, has a child, and now works three jobs, 100+ hours a week, to make ends meet and barely has enough food on the table. A white male raised in a wealthy, privileged home gets into Yale with his family's contacts and barely passes, now earns 7 figures through a job he "earned" with his family's contacts. How can we justify this type of system? Who is to claim that the divorced mother doesn't deserve more, yet she works harder than the banker and doesn't have access to the privilege that he does and will never earn more than minimum wage? Now with banks and schools refusing to give more loans and funding to students who need it, the gap will become even more alarmingly narrow between the have and have nots. The fact remains, we have been and will continue to live in a class system. As long as we keep deluding ourselves that this system "works", and spew the rhetoric to defend said system, things will never improve. Instead, we will continue to fight each other and not the system, just as our politicians in Washington seem to have wanted for the past 30-40 years. Wake up people, the system doesn't work! It never did. It's a complete shame.
That's the inherit flaw with any system: humanity. Greed almost always rears its ugly head, and morals and human decency fall to the wayside. SOME regulation is always necessary, otherwise the children will play. Wall Street is a great example. Future trading and greedy hedge fund-ies went NUTS the past few years. In 2005 one of the many reasons gas prices went sky high is that future traders decided to raise the speculative price on oil, raking in billions for companies such as Exxon/Mobil while raking in millions if not billions on commission. It wasn't Katrina folks, the oil wells and refineries were meeting demand. It was the companies and "Wall Street" that decided on using Katrina for an excuse to drive up prices and rake in easy cash. Gotta love the "system". When the parents are away, the children will play, and play they have, at the masses expense.
Getting those hundreds of people marching in the same direction to produce something that is shippable is not an easy task. Hundreds of people left to their own agendas will never produce a solid product. Engineers love writing code, marketers love re-branding stuff, and so on. Coordinating these different personalities, agendas, getting them to deliver product on time and within a reasonable cost structure is not a simple task. Management teams make or break these goals for the business. Being strategic for the long term while delivering something that is a product now is very tough. This is not a simple 40 or even a 60 hour/week job. This is your entire life if you are leading in these organizations. $20M to drive that is not unreasonable, especially if you look at the business benefit.
The history to be learned from that Russian revolution is that the median populace ended up worse off after the revolution, compared with most other large countries that let the "fat cats" keep most of their loot. It historically has not been a zero sum game. Enough government bureaucracy to keep the greedy railroad barrons down usually ends up being far worse for the little man as well. That's what people need to learn from history.
Since Apple has consistently refused to pay dividends to shareholders, actually they made nothing at all. (Unless they sold the stock, in which case thy are no longer shareholders.) I'm thinking of selling mine soon.