Literally, nothing is unreasonable for Apple. They're among the richest companies on the planet. I'm over Corporate Equity and treating them the same as the mom & pop grocery store down the street. Yeah, it'd be unreasonable for small businesses.
Its not unreasonable for Apple. Tim Cook could personally, out of his own salary, pay the salaries of every Apple employee in New York. He could give them all a 200% raise, and he'd still make twenty times more than ICU nurses who work 20 hour shifts to save his life if he ever needs it.
As an employee, it would help me feel pride to contribute toward a company that is willing to not just meet the law, but go beyond it and provide valuable and gainful employment for people like Richard. As a customer, it would make me proud to walk into an Apple Store and work with someone like Richard, to see that Apple were willing to pay an entire second salary simply to be accommodating. Comparatively, the salaries of an entire Apple retail stores' worth of employees is exactly the same as you accidentally dropping your change at a register, a penny rolls under the checkout lane, and you say "nah its not worth it".
Now, the reality of the situation is that, Apple Corporate would probably be fine with this, but the real problem is with this Middle Manager. To be clear, it reflects poorly on Corporate, and its their responsibility to set terms and culture to ensure Bad Store Managers don't pop up. But, they will. What matters is Apple's response, not necessarily the history of what happened (though, six years is a very long time).
> In 2020, Tim Cook's compensation included $3M in base pay, a $10.7M bonus, and $250.3M in stock grants.
You do understand that, because Apple is a public company, all of this information is literally public knowledge, right?
If you'd like to argue that stock grants are not part of a person's salary, that is a reasonable interpretation of the definition of "salary", but hardly relevant to the broader point, which is clearly not to assert that Timmy should open up his checkbook, but rather to illustrate how incredibly inane it is to suggest that a few hundred bucks a week for an hourly interpreter means anything at the scale Apple operates at.
You do know that high earners play this game to avoid the sort of tax liabilities ordinary people have to pay? They aren't nobler by taking a $1 salary.
Yes. The fact remains that Tim Cook could not do what was claimed out of his salary. Period, paragraph. Just as obvious: Tim Cook wouldn't do this if he weren't confident in his leadership. Apple stock is up more than 10x since he took over.
Apple employs 147,000 people directly at the end of FY2020. That's $1,800 per employee that's going to Tim Cook, all up. Which is high, but it is what the owners (via the board of directors) think he's worth.
Actually, if you bothered to look into this for more than two seconds, which you obviously didn't, you'd discover that Tim Cook has been receiving far less TOTAL compensation than all his peers, as well, for a long time now.
And that's without taking his performance into account, which is, of course, obviously the best performance by any CEO in the world.
So I'm pedantic and an asshole? Fuck that. Two can play at that game: you're a lazy jerk who paints sloppily with a broad brush.
The claim was that Tim Cook's salary is enough to pay for "every apple salary in new york"
Given that equating "salary" and "total compensation" is a reasonable interpretation, and by the context the talk was about front line apple store workers rather than high level developers, the figures add up (and then some)
I'm making no judgement on Cook's compensation or value, just confirming the numbers, but you seem to take that as a personal attack.
You're also leaving out the part that the year in question included a very large stock grant that Cook doesn't get every year; in most years his total compensation would be dramatically smaller, even if you assume he could magically liquidate all stock without depressing the stock price and also pay zero tax on that.
As for you pretending to be shocked that I considered your comments a personal attack, um, er, uh, you called me a "pedantic asshole". I think that qualifies.
Does the argument meaningfully change if you replace the word "salary" with "compensation"? If not, please stop pretending that you made an interesting point.
Yes, it actually does, because the value of his compensation, 98% or so of which is in stock, would be worth over 10 times less right now if it were not for Tim Cook's performance as CEO. That makes a rather big difference, in my view.
It also changes the argument meaningfully in a second way: liquidity. Tim Cook can't just go sell all that stock right now, since that would cause a rather big panic and also rob him of a lot of its value. Which means he could not actually pay all those folks' salaries.
Whether my point is "interesting" is up to you. Whether it's factual isn't. It's factual.
Its not unreasonable for Apple. Tim Cook could personally, out of his own salary, pay the salaries of every Apple employee in New York. He could give them all a 200% raise, and he'd still make twenty times more than ICU nurses who work 20 hour shifts to save his life if he ever needs it.
As an employee, it would help me feel pride to contribute toward a company that is willing to not just meet the law, but go beyond it and provide valuable and gainful employment for people like Richard. As a customer, it would make me proud to walk into an Apple Store and work with someone like Richard, to see that Apple were willing to pay an entire second salary simply to be accommodating. Comparatively, the salaries of an entire Apple retail stores' worth of employees is exactly the same as you accidentally dropping your change at a register, a penny rolls under the checkout lane, and you say "nah its not worth it".
Now, the reality of the situation is that, Apple Corporate would probably be fine with this, but the real problem is with this Middle Manager. To be clear, it reflects poorly on Corporate, and its their responsibility to set terms and culture to ensure Bad Store Managers don't pop up. But, they will. What matters is Apple's response, not necessarily the history of what happened (though, six years is a very long time).