Apple's Tim Cook gets one million reasons to stay on as CEO Apple has given its new CEO, Tim Cook, a million reasons to stay on until August 24, 2021. As required by Securities and Exchange Commission rules, Apple filed a Form 8-K on Friday to officially inform stockholders of company leadership changes that might affect stock performance. Oh, if you haven't heard, Steve Jobs resigned …
Hmm, well, using that 4029% rate, that makes the market cap of Apple in 2021 about 14.682 Trillion
Now US GDP in 2010 was 14.5265T, lets assume a 3% growth rate, so that makes US GDP in 2021 20.1081T
So Apples market cap will be 73.02% of GDP. Somewhere around there maybe they'll change the US flag to the Apple logo? :)
(a) you'd get really bored- with less than a hundred or so million you could run out of cash pretty quickly (if living a lavish lifestyle).
(b) at tens-of-millions you're barely 'rich' by today's standards. Try buying a superyacht for a whole decade's earnings and you'll be at the shallow end of that pool. And when you're rich you'll associate with people like you- who'll also be rich. So your baseline for how well off you're doing shifts as well.
(c) Maybe, just maybe, the guy might enjoy his job!
Couldn't agree more, JDX. I've long realised I could never be a Jobs, Gates or Buffet.
Long before I was worth a billion, I would have thought "Sod this for a game of soldiers - I have enough to not have to come to work any more..."
It would be nice to have a few millions to give away though - but to real deserving causes, not just todays PC favourite.
Steve Wozniak quit Apple after a similar revelation following a microlight-aircraft accident. I can't find the article now, but while lying in his hospital bed, he says that he thought to himself: "I've over a quarter of a billion dollars, and I'm in my thirties. There's nothing I plan to do for the rest of my life that needs more money than that. Why should I go back?"
Granted, this was in the early 1980s, when a quarter of a billion dollars was a lot of money... ;)
If you have enough money to comfortably live off just the interest for the rest of your life, what is the incentive to actually do anything at all? If you do things for other reasons than money, why bother with it once you have 'working capital'?
Sorry, I just don't get it at all.
How is this any different to any other megacorp? If the guy delivers results (which he kind of has been doing already) then where is the problem? It's not like Apple are hemorrhaging cash; far from it. If anything this deal is a show of faith from Apple's board in Tim Cook. It is a positive thing. I guess that since you almost certainly have no real concern, then of course you'd look at it negatively.
This has nothing to do with giving Tim some huge allotment of money.
This doesn't even have anything to do with a performance bonus (although indirectly it does apply).
As the article and various of you all note, his regular compensation is fair enough already.
No, this is all about succession planning. The board wants to guarantee a stable leadership figure over at least the next 5, preferably 10, years. This is for both public image and shareholder confidence, as well as to bring up and train the next executive team in "the Apple way".
And for that, no amount of money would be too much. The fact that it is a relatively modest amount considering Apples profit, marketshare and "earnings potential" means that there are already other compensation plans underway.
Whether you agree with the Apple ethos or not doesn't matter. The fact remains it is one of the largest companies in the world. Successfully leading such a beast is not only terribly difficult, but deserves compensation commiserate with the responsibilities.
Karl P
Giles, this is nothing to do with Tim Cooks regard of Apple. This is the board telling investors and Wall St generally that they believe that Tim Cook is the right man going forward and that they are prepared to commit to him on a massive financial scale. Money is the language of investment; merely shouting, clown like, of your love for the company means nothing in business terms.
If he continues to deliver results like in the past, that bonus is not gross.
Wall-Street has paid much more to people who destroyed more value than he helped create.
It's probably better to let Scott and Phil do the presentations, though ;-)
Even Phil has gotten better at it over the last key-notes - and I though he was hopeless.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
