r/technology • u/geoxol • Jan 13 '23 • Bravo! 1 Helpful (Pro) 1

Apple CEO Tim Cook to take more than 40% pay cut Business

https://apnews.com/article/technology-apple-inc-tim-cook-business-d056553b10120c4a968b562cb7ece5d2
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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

Even if it is a publicity stunt, if he uses that 3 million to give raises to his blue collar employees, it would still be a respected publicity stunt.

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u/reasonably_plausible Jan 13 '23

I don't know. With around 65,000 retail employees, I'd think a 2¢/hr raise is more likely to be seen as an insult than as a respected publicity stunt.

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u/ganjanoob Jan 13 '23

I got a .15 cent raise an hour per union contract and it just feels like an insult. I’m making good money so it’s not a problem right now but 15 cents isn’t touching inflation.

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u/FNALSOLUTION1 Jan 13 '23

I got a dollar/hr raise an immediately after the toll I pay to get home everyday went from $1.25 to $3. Got to love inflation.

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u/ganjanoob Jan 13 '23

I’m sorry. I know it’s frustrating when there’s no ability to save up and it feels like inflation just keeps eating you up

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u/prncrny Jan 13 '23

I'm making twice what I was 3 years ago and my margins are identical, if not worse. It really eats at a man's confidence.

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u/Reflexlon Jan 13 '23

10 years ago if you'd told me that I'd be making what I am now with my benefits like vacation, insurance, bonuses, I'd think I made it and am living life. Nope, I dont take my vacations because I need the EoY pay-out to survive holiday expenditures. Yippee.

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u/DarkestNight1013 Jan 13 '23

Dude right? Just in 2022 I'm making 6 DOLLARS more an hour than I was at the beginning of the year between two lateral moves and a pay raise and my budge no longer contains a savings portion, and I DROPPED a car payment on top of that.

No clue how I'm going to even survive into 2024, and I make over 50k a year.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

[deleted]

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u/prncrny Jan 13 '23 edited Jan 15 '23

Or I was making shit money before and I'm making slightly less shit money now?

3 years ago it was 24k. Now it's closer to 56k.

But housing has gone up alot. As has food, power, gas, and literally everything else. Plus we had 2 kids and moved twice.

But, yeah. Go ahead. Tell me it's just me.

Edit: Only 3 down votes and Lready deleted his comment. Coward.

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u/Nasa1225 Jan 13 '23

That sucks, but at least per-day you're (in theory and before taxes) up $6.25 with an 8 hour workday.

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u/nur5e Jan 13 '23

But I bet the union thugs got a lot more money.

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u/L3tum Jan 14 '23

We haven't got a raise in 2 years now. The last one was for 2%, which translates to roughly 6ct/h

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u/mferrari_3 Jan 13 '23 edited Jan 14 '23

Multiply the 15 cents by your hours per month and see if it is less than your union dues.
Also UFCW? That's the kind of stuff those amoral human filth would negotiate.
Edit: Looks like some morbidly obese wastes of oxygen found my comment! I guessed right, his awful union was UFCW.
Fuck UFCW. They work for the corporations, do not allow their members to collective bargain, and accomplish nothing. They're not just class traitors, they're domestic terrorists. Grifters who's scam needs to be dismantled and destroyed.

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u/ganjanoob Jan 13 '23

How did you know UFCW hahaha I’ve paid 300 this year in dues. I make 28 an hour but a lot of people would consider my position underpaid. They negotiated a 15 cent raise and sold everyone on it like that would match inflation. Thanks for the pamphlet once a year. They address some issues, but it’s so half ass. Come in, say hi to their friends and walk out

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u/mferrari_3 Jan 13 '23

Cause I was a member for nearly a decade. The UFCW is the most useless entity in the history of organized labor.
Morbidly obese scumbags who have not stepped foot in a store since Covid started. They are class traitor swine.

1

u/wreckedcarzz Jan 13 '23

I mean if you don't want it, I'll take it

1

u/iamNebula Jan 13 '23

I agree that would be a low pay rise but come on. A ceo taking a massive pay cut to pay its employees cannot be seen as a bad thing, you will never be happy if you see things that way. What else is he meant to do? Even you have explained it won't do much cos there's so many employees. A 40% fucking paycut!? What more can he actually do directly regarding his pay.

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u/reasonably_plausible Jan 14 '23

I think you think I am the same person as the head of this thread. I don't see it as a bad thing...

People just seem to have a problem with scale in regards to CEO pay and company-wide compensation. Thinking that if only we cut back compensation at the top it would mean massive increases in compensation if spread out to all the workers.

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u/oboshoe Jan 13 '23

It would be a laughable publicity stunt. On the order of a "fruit of the month club"

Let's do some math. $3 million divided up equally to all 36,000 employees.

Each employee would $83. A year. Or abut $1.59 a week.

Before inflation took off Apple budgeted about $154 million a year on raises. (3%). Not sure what it is now.

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u/whathe2014 Jan 13 '23

That's the thing about people that want to each the rich. They have no clue how little of them there are.

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u/rollingForInitiative Jan 13 '23

That's the thing about people that want to each the rich. They have no clue how little of them there are.

On the other hand, Apple as a whole had a net profit of something like 90 billion dollars in 2021. They paid out about 14 billion in dividends. 1 billion split across 164000 employees is about $6000. That's not a huge amount of money, but not an insignificant one either. And it's a small portion of the total dividends, which is a small portion of the total profits.

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u/ProfessionalITShark Jan 13 '23

I did th emath, 36,000 employee making 100k would cost 3.6 bil, not knowing the other costs of employment.

Realistically if they cut down their dividends in half, they should be able to significantly overpay their entire staff.

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u/whathe2014 Jan 13 '23

That's not a huge amount of money, but not an insignificant one either.

If each Apple employee puts up $13,048,780 to buy out the company, then they would get $6000 dividends paid out to them annually.

That's how much money other people put up. Sounds fair?

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u/rollingForInitiative Jan 13 '23

You were saying that there isn't enough wealth to go around, but there absolutely is. Most of it just isn't tied into CEO salaries, it goes elsewhere. Apple could cut down the their dividends by a small amount and give significant raises to their lowest paid employees.

The vast majority of people will never have 13 million dolllars. That alone is something you could retire on by a wide margin. You and your entire family. With lots of money to spare.

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u/whathe2014 Jan 14 '23

You are missing the point. Those dividends were earned by other people. They went to work, saved money, and invested that money into Apple. That's why they get the dividends.

Why would that money go to employees who already got compensated for their time? Doesn't make any sense. But then again, this is Reddit.

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u/rollingForInitiative Jan 14 '23

Dividens aren't even guaranteed when you buy stocks. For instance, Apple paid no dividens at all between 2001 and 2012. There are publicly traded companies that never pay dividends and reinvest the money.

Mind you, Apple is probably not the best example, since they have a lot of very highly paid employees. But there are plenty of big profitable companies that pay a lot of essential people absolute crap.

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u/Skagritch Jan 14 '23

I know exactly how little of them there are and the outsized power they wield.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

To be clear, I stated if it went to blue collar employees, not all employees.

Which I cannot calculate from my spot.

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u/reasonably_plausible Jan 13 '23

I don't know where the other person is getting their number of employees, but Apple has 164,000 employees. Of those, around 65,000 are retail workers. The number of blue collar employees is likely significantly larger than the 36,000 they are using here.

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u/boforbojack Jan 13 '23

Well the title is bad. His total compensation for 2022 was $100mil. The target for 2023 is somewhere around $50mil.

So ~$1k/year to each employee which isn't bad since the only change is one person being just a little less insanely rich. Put that same pressure on the mid-high lvl executives and all of sudden wages start to match inflation.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

This would be awesome, but Apple has a history of not doing that.

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u/oboshoe Jan 13 '23

If Apple took that $3m salary and gave it to all employees, that be $83 a year.

On the other hand, apple historically budged about $154 million a year on raises. That's before inflation took off.

What you think would be a great and wonderful raises, is 50 times less than what they normally get.

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u/Mountain_Housing_704 Jan 14 '23

Not sure what your point is. By that logic, he could also just give himself another $3m raise at the expense of all the employees. After all, it's only $83 a year, right?

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u/oboshoe Jan 14 '23

this sub thread is implying he could $3 million could make a meaningful difference in e players salaries.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

Yep. And that’s why it’s not respected.

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u/OrganicFun7030 Jan 13 '23

Does Apple Pay particularly low wages and not give raises?

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

To their engineers? No. To a lot of the rank and file workers? Yea. Especially their Apple Approved contract factories in China.

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u/mferrari_3 Jan 13 '23

If you think that will happen I'd love to sell you some essential oils or cutco knives.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

Ha! What’s the website you’re phishing with today?

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u/mferrari_3 Jan 13 '23

You understand that the employees will never see that money and you're dickriding a billionaire right?

-3

u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

Oh, is that the micro peen I’m feeling right now?

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u/Wordymanjenson Jan 13 '23

I got lured in in high school with a job offer to cutco and was so embarrassed when I found out what they were doing during orientation. I stuck around for the hour or two of pay and then left. I actually can’t remember if they actually paid for orientation. I’m sure they did but that was it for me.

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u/Mendo-D Jan 14 '23

So what’s up with Cutco? I’ve got a really nice scissor made by them.

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u/demonicneon Jan 13 '23

Was gonna say this move is PR cause recession is coming up, but it’s not respectable unless some of that money goes to employees and benefits.

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u/Bakkone Jan 13 '23

But as previously stated ots not enough to help the others

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u/demonicneon Jan 13 '23 edited Jan 13 '23

3 mill into a pension pot every year won’t stack up interest?

Edit: just add to this imagine he did this at start of his tenure. 3 mill a year for like a decade, with compound interest? That’s a decent chunk of change an average Apple employee wouldn’t mind having a piece of.

Unless this money is used elsewhere for other employees this gesture is MEANINGLESS. He doesn’t miss the money nor need it but if he’s giving it up, it’s to ensure he gets more money later instead of now. These people arent thick but they think we are all dumb.

Everyone will think he’s a great guy and selfless while he laughs his way to the bank.

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u/runningraider13 Jan 13 '23

Not all that much no. Apple has 150k+ employees so $3m is about $20 per employee. So I guess you could give everyone a $20 raise/$20 gift card at the holidays or something, or if you chuck it in the pension - even with a pretty aggressive assumption of 5% real (post inflation) returns that's only about $250 per employee, in a decade. Sure it'd be nice to have $250 in 2033, but it's not really an amount that moves any needles.

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u/demonicneon Jan 13 '23

I think you forget for a huge number of Apple employees, $250 is more than they earn in a year …

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u/thankful-wax-5500 Jan 13 '23

*subcontractors

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u/demonicneon Jan 13 '23

The above statement was exaggeration but for perspective, a full Apple customer service engineer in India earns equivalent of around $1,700 a year. $250 isn’t exactly insignificant.

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u/oboshoe Jan 13 '23

$3m - It's not even enough to buy every employee a "jelly of the month club".

$3m doesn't go far across 36,000 people.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

I said blue collar employees, not all employees.

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u/gophergun Jan 13 '23

So first off, Apple doesn't use pensions, but rather 401(k)s like most corporations. That said, they could increase their employee match by a fraction of a tenth of a percent, but it's really negligible compared to the $16 billion currently under management in their 401(k) plan.

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u/demonicneon Jan 13 '23

In america sure. They operate in other countries that use pensions.

It was simple an example of how it could be used. It isn’t an insignificant amount, in reality, although it seems it compared to the staggering amount of money they spend every year.

It could be put towards plenty benefits for employees, or charity, but it’s not being publicly shown to do so.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

Also, I thought there were new taxes imposed on his class in this last year. At least a mandatory minimum of some kind. Or was that all talk?

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u/demonicneon Jan 13 '23

Possibly. I think I read that it’s something to do with his retirement package and how it cashed out/is taxed. Basically, rich man makes money moves that rich people do all the time based on avoiding tax loopholes, someone in the news notices it and writes a story on it cause it seems insane and altruistic.

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u/TheButcherr Jan 13 '23

"recession is coming", lol it was here months ago, stagflation is just now hitting its stride and its a marathon

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u/chiefmud Jan 13 '23

“This just in. In what has been labeled the biggest publicity stunt in the history of humanity; The billionaires of the world decide to fund a total worldwide switch to renewable energy sources over the next decade, and simultaneously create a permanent fund to provide basic nutrition, maternal care, and K-12 education to all the World’s poor.”

“In related news, Q-Anon militias are gearing up to eradicate what they allege to be a “reptilian new world order power grab” that they claim will end Christianity, destroy the poor’s willingness to work, and ban lifted-trucks and truck ballsacks forever”

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u/ramore369 Jan 13 '23

Right, I agree! It definitely could be for publicity. But if more companies follow the example, that’s a lot of money going back to the workers or towards the products companies make.

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u/MarBoBabyBoy Jan 13 '23

How about the blue collar workers give themselves raises by increasing their skills and taking on more responsibilities?

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '23

Found the trumper!

If everyone got secondary education, then who would do that job? Why don’t you clean up your own office if you don’t want to pay someone else to do it? How about cleaning your offices bathrooms?

Entitlement isn’t free.

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u/MarBoBabyBoy Jan 14 '23

Not everyone, just the people bitching about not getting paid enough.

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u/BullmooseTheocracy Jan 13 '23

Apple has blue collar employees?

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

Who do you cleans up after them?

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u/cumquistador6969 Jan 13 '23

Yeah but like, even if it was that's not how it works, and it wouldn't be nearly enough to be meaningful.

He was paid ~100 million last year, which presumably he negotiated for (he refused to speak on the topic).

This was against a lot of "popular," at least for the type of person who reads economics magazines and Forbes and the like, outcry against his ludacris compensation package last year. This came from a variety of experts in the area, supposedly (it's not like I can tell the difference).

However it was unfortunately approved.

Now he'll "only" be paid in the mid 40 millions, which I'm sure he's fine with after raking in a 100 million dollar payday last year alone.

Keeping in mind his pay and compensation in 2021 was also insane at over 90 million.

Back in 2020 he was paid a "normal" salary for his position, below 20 million for the year.

Presumably the cause for his incredibly high pay being floated in the first place was Tim Cook, since public companies aren't always in the business of giving out simply outrageous amounts of free money to people, with the understanding that the already bananas 1-20 million CEO pay scale is "standard" for these large companies.

Most likely this year is a tactical move, likely because he expected to have his psychotically high pay nixed by shareholders regardless (which is why it's lower now, because the shareholders decided to lower it, not Tim Cook).

At over 40 million, it's still Ludacris even for a company of Apple's size, and highly improbable that he provides that much value over another skilled high powered CEO you could hire for 20 million dollars.

The point is, there is not any indication from any party that one red cent will be going to their lower paid employees.

Considering the decision to first raise his pay, and then lower it again this year, all came from shareholders who felt that each of those decisions would maximize their profit as shareholders, it's highly unlikely.