Apple supremo Tim Cook's pay packet SLASHED 99% in 2012
Apple boss Tim Cook took a 99 per cent pay cut in 2012 - the year his firm's maps crapp confused iPhone fanbois and rival Android dominated the mobile market. The chief executive took home a paltry $4.17m in salary and a non-equity bonus, according to paperwork just filed with US financial regulator the SEC, down from the $378m …
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@07:38 Funny, I seem to get along fine with folks that actually say things which are constructive. It's the ones who just want to emote and self-promote that I rather enjoy mixing it up with. Constructive is good; plenty of them around here I rather like.
so...
so the "news" in this article is that Cook's pay is less than last year, although, it's not because last year included special one-off bonus, and in fact, this year he's got a little bit more than last year?
i'm not sure there's any real news there, although, fair play to El Reg, the FT also covered this in a full page article.
Re: so...
Bear in mind when you read an article about outrageous executive pay, they'll be spinning it upwards by including every one-off. Not to mention double-counting, so for example a five-year award will be counted when it's first awarded, then again in each of the five years over which it's paid.
This article is kind-of a counterbalance to that. Same spin, but with a self-aware angle as opposed to an intention to mislead.
That's a lot of money...
Maybe we should pay footballers in share options instead of vast wages, cars and expensive call girls, might make them concentrate a bit more on playing well, not getting red carded, having an investment in the club they play for and doing a good job overall.
Hmm, not that share options have done much of any of the above for CEOs and the like in businesses.
I'm trying to work out how someone is worth over $60m a year. Not that I'd say no myself, but it does seem a bit OTT. Spread those share options a bit more liberally around the company Apple.
Re: That's a lot of money...
Footballers are a particular bug-bear of mine, specifically their apparent immunity to criticism for performance compared to team managers. I don't understand a process whereby a player can be bought for X million, tied into a 3/4/5 year contract and perhaps not play more than 40% of the time (and perform poorly) but still be paid in full, slathered with sponsorship endorsements and generally worshipped, but a manager can be in a job for 9 games and get the sack within 2 months because the 11 players on the pitch were crap. The players still get to stay on though.
What's a suitable IT analogy? Buying windows 8 and installing it on a Dell PC but realising that you can't figure out how to make it playback your UEFA Champions Leage Highlights DVD. You throw it out.
Then you buy another PC from HP, install Windows 8 on it and get the same result.
Then you try installing it on a Compaq. Same again.
And then you tell your mates that all PCs are shit because they can't play DVDs...
Re: That's a lot of money...
"Maybe we should pay footballers in share options!
That could make for some interesting matches after players get transferred from one team to another.
Re: That's a lot of money...
>Footballers are a particular bug-bear of mine
Film stars are even worse. You pay Bruce Willis/Arnie/Clooney $100M to appear in a movie,it takes $1Bn at the box office yet makes a loss - and they still pay the star
"Fanbois may recall that Jobs famously gave himself a salary of $1 at Apple but held shares worth billions."
So that was nothing more than a tax fiddle? Wish the rest of us could get out of paying income tax and national insurance as easily.
Maybe so, but you sure have to trust that those shares will go up otherwise you quickly earn negative income...
Great motivator right there and shares going up is good for the wider economy too.
quote: "Great motivator right there and shares going up is good for the wider economy too."
I've always been confused by this one. Unless there is an infinite source of money, a value increase in share price should consequently de-value something else, surely? So the concomitant devaluation (of competitors, I would assume?) would in parallel be bad for the economy, wouldn't it?
I know trading is not a fully zero-sum game, and neither is economics in general thanks to inflation, but I didn't think it was skewed enough to allow value increases to have no negative knock-on effects... :/
Anyone got an easily digestible explanation for that?
@NumptyScrub re.
"Unless there is an infinite source of money, a value increase in share price should consequently de-value something else, surely? "
In which case, we'd be stuck in the Victorian age (or earlier) as far as share valuations and total wealth was concerned. Don't ask me to explain it, I'm just observing and commenting here. An economist will be along in a minute.
Re: @NumptyScrub re.
Credit creation, very basically!
You may "have" money in the bank, but unless you actually go to the bank, withdraw it and stuff it under your mattress, the bank will be doing other things with a proportion of it (keeping some as reserve for the proportion of people who withdraw some or all of their money).
Say you put £100 in the bank... They will lend out a proportion of it, call it 90%, so someone else now has £90, but you still have your £100 'in the bank'. The 2nd person spends their £90, the shop puts it in the bank and the bank then lends out £81 of it, and you get a series:
£100 + 0.9*100 + 0.9^2*100 + 0.9^3*100 ........... = £1000.
So £100 is now £1000, hinging around everybody not realising this, especially not at the same time, and definitely not if they find out the £100 they put in the bank went to a high risk and there's a chance they won't get it back, cue Northern Rock run.
tl;dr - it's all lies.
Re: @NumptyScrub re.
quote: "Credit creation, very basically!
tl;dr - it's all lies."
I suspected as much, but was very much hoping to be proved wrong. Even less fun when you find out governments use very similar techniques and just print more when they need it (usually after selling the reserves it should be guaranteed on)... :'(
Yeah right - he would have paid more tax on what he spends than you earn. Income tax and NI are not the only taxes. He also increased the value of Apple enormously which would have triggered huge capital gains taxes for Apple shareholders. So as far as increasing overall tax take he is an ocean and you are a teacup.
99% pay cut
Yet he's still earned more money this year than anyone has in their entire career peddling Linux....
Re: 99% pay cut
Obvious troll is obvious, but hey, I'm bored. Bored enough to look Jim Whitehurst up on Forbes and read the part where he earned $7,407,214 in 2011 (figures for 2012 aren't there yet).
Soooooo....no.
Re: 99% pay cut
I suspect Google and Samsung have made plenty (hint, Android is based on Linux).
all that dosh!
and I read he gets up at 6, does a round at the gym, spends the rest of the day in the office and then goes home.....so WTF does he (or any other high paid CEO) spend the money on?
Re: all that dosh!
Yachts, big ones, expensive ones; but not beautiful ones I suspect.
Re: all that dosh!
so WTF does he (or any other high paid CEO) spend the money on?
Same thing we should all aim for (IMO): retiring early and spending the rest of our days enjoying everything else.
WTF?
"Cook was also a runner-up in this year's Time Person of the Year award"
For what, exactly? Being able to 'head' a successful and well-established company without completely ruining it in less than a year? Having lots of money?
An activist I can understand, and even a president trying to make the most of a country gone to shit, but Cook? I'm sure he does make decisions on a day to day basis (he has to do something to earn that 4 mil) but he has an army of experienced advisers around him to walk him through every step, and is certainly not worthy of being anywhere near the top of the 'person of the year' award. What a pile of bullshit Time is.
Re: WTF?
I had to say the same.
Exactly what has he done to got on such a list? As you said, he took over a company which was dominating the markets it was in, and had a number of already well received products in the hands of consumers. I'm struggling to think of what he's done which has further expanded the company which didn't rely on the work already carried out by Jobs and Co before he took the helm.
Re: WTF?
"dominating the markets it was in"
Not even that - they don't dominate in computer operating systems, and they're third place in phones behind even Nokia (or by mobile OS, outsold by Android 6 times over). Which makes it even worse.
He's the CEO of a multinational. The media can harp on about Apple's "success", but the fact is it's nothing more than the success of many other multinationals (you have to be successful in order to get to being a multinational, basically).
It's sad to see the Apple bias in the media continues after Jobs - it's sad to see their pathetic attempts to try to personify Apple with the new CEO (what's-his-name), just like they did with Jobs - it's far easier to make a company look friendlier or different when you see them as a person, and just look at the overblown hoo-hah when Jobs died. Do we think most of those overemotional Apple fans even know the name of the CEO of larger and more successful Samsung is, let alone know if he died?
(I suppose the counter example is that being Time Person of the Year isn't necessarily a compliment, but also covers negative aspects, e.g., obvious example being Hitler - so this could cover the negative actions of Apple such as trying to lock the most successful smartphone platform out of the market. But even there, it's ludicrous to say he's the most influential person, or anywhere near it)
Re: WTF?
Suspect the 'success' of Samsung will be far more short lived than Apple and they will be back to making average fridges and cheap TVs just as soon as 'someone else' develops the next 'best' Android phone and tablets. They have no unique selling point - Apple have iOS and the whole ecosystem - Samsung make hardware and in 6-12-18 months that could all change.
The only long term winner with Android is Google and remember they bought Motorola - now lets suppose Motorola made the next new 'best' Android phone - I can imagine a lot of people would have no issue buying that instead after all with Android it's the OS not the phone manufacturer. Lenovo, Asus, Motorola or ...?
The other irony with the 'success' of Samsung is it's largely been on the back of Apple - Samsung phones pre-iPhone were just like any other Nokia, LG etc.
Re: WTF?
The person of the year award is for the person "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year."
Don't see your name being suggested? Big Mac meal please - no mayo.
It really is ridiculous to suggest Samsung are any better - guess their CEO is a Saint on earth?
non-story
Last years pay was golden handcuffs that will reward him over the coming decade or so provided he stays and achieves results. Of course he's not getting more this year. What does he do? For a start he gets up at 3:45 every morning then does an hour of email and an hour in the gym and then a very long day's work. He is seriously, obsessively dedicated. Would you be if you had hundreds of millions in the bank?
Old Reliable
Trust the Register to pick up on a bogus story.
Just a Poor Boy
Poor Tim, it's a tough life for a CEO. I guess he'll just have to tighten his belt and average his $700 MILLION compensation from last year with the "lump of coal" that the Rotten Apple doled out this year. Some how I think Tim is strong enough to scrap by under the circumstances...
Cook's salary written out in words
"wealth beyond the dreams of avarice"
@Chris Thomas Alpha
wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.
Avarice = Greed
How can you dream of riches beyond the dreams of greed?
No dosh here
'The chief executive took home a paltry $4.17m'
Poor lamb.
Re: No dosh here
I have tears in my beir over Timmy only getting a paltry $4 million this year. I'm so distraught I might need to have another beir.
Re: No dosh here
... and his stock options have increased in value by almost $400m as well.
Re: No dosh here
Think you have had too many already perhaps a dictionary would serve you better?
Maybe we should take up a collection?
Do you think the Chincese slaves will be able to donate to Tim's worthy cause?
Re: Maybe we should take up a collection?
Slaves - hardly - people travel long distances and queue to apply for jobs at the factories.
Also before you say things like 'slaves' ever considered if they would be better or worse off without those jobs?
Re: Maybe we should take up a collection?
You might want to educate yourselves... Just because they queue up so they don't starve to death due to over-population does not mean they are not treated and abused as slaves - which has been documented. Being in denial is ignorant. Pretending that Foxconn is doing these people a "favor" is insulting and foolish.
Re: Maybe we should take up a collection?
I am not saying it's a place I would choose to work - but they do - so what does that say of the alternative?
So what is your master plan - move the jobs back to the US and then are they better or worse off?
Charitable Donations
How much did Tim Cook give to charity this year? Anyone know?
Correct me if I am wrong....
But the whole bloody point of the article was to be lighthearted, and have a bit of a pop at Apple maybe. Saying that you don't like the way it is written is a bit like complaining that the spaceships in Star Trek don't conform to neutonian physics. Yes, you're correct, but this is irrelevant. The piece was written for entertainment value as much as it was for technical accuracy.
I never waste time wondering why CEOs, Bankers or Footballers are paid so much. I don't run a company, I have appauling maths and i'm shit at football. Therefore none of the above really effect me very much.
But I will say this. Apple do seem to have lost their trademark surefootedness as of late. At the moment most of the products being launched were probably largely instigated under Steve Job's regieme. But that won't be true for much longer, and it will be interesting to see how much the company changes with a new person at the helm. Certainly the appearance of the iPad mini could indictate that someone, somewhere thinks differently from Steve Jobs. They may be right, they may be wrong. But Apple are a unique company, a lot of their value is in fashionability and brand image. It would not be hard to cock it up so badly that they become a pariah brand. However it would be very hard to do as good a job of reading the writing the market as Steve Jobs did.
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