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
39.1k Upvotes

81% Upvoted

3.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

740

u/No_Employment_129 Jan 13 '23

According to the article, the pay cut was advised partly based off his own recommendation.

It’s a 40% cut of his salary, which is $3m, so down to $1.8m. Still rich beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. AND, his stock options value is roughly $100m. And who knows how many other investments he has, which have nothing to do with this article.

Seems like a publicity stunt to me.

489

u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

[deleted]

80

u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23 edited Jan 13 '23

[deleted]

29

u/continuousQ Jan 13 '23

A trillion dollar company is ridiculous.

12

u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

[deleted]

7

u/PhoenixStorm1015 Jan 14 '23

Yes, but the problem with capitalism and corporate mentalities is there IS NO END GAME. There is no goal or plateau or point where the company is happy. They ALWAYS need more. Obviously there are ways a company can improve without simply trying to eternally make more money, but I think it’s safe to say that one option is VERY encouraged in our cultures. I.E. it’s bad to be greedy, unless it’s a company or an entrepreneur, then it suddenly becomes accepted and often expected.

3

u/americandream6969 Jan 14 '23

I think once a company is ridiculously wealthy, they should have to split it in two and the staff choose if they want to work for team Ying or team Yang. All the people who don’t like each other can split. Then Apple Ying and Apple Yang compete in the market and the market chooses which side they want to buy from, price is always same.

2

u/SheltheRapper Jan 14 '23

You're actually onto something. That's how commerce naturally functions

0

u/Ready_to_anything Jan 14 '23

Price would go down since you just destroyed the monopoly they have on their existing IP

1

u/americandream6969 Jan 14 '23

No, the IP remains same as the brand Apple own both versions. It’s only front of house that changes. When one goes bust they have to start another version again, well that’s if that are still worth over the prescribed limit that makes them whatever qualifies as super duper wealthy and having some kind of ridiculous market dominance. It’s just a theory I have. Anyway… plenty of loose ends to tie up, haha, but I’d have a punt anyway if I was gonna buy Twitter at the moment for example.

3

u/tehkier Jan 13 '23

There's no way to be that successful in our current economic system without exploiting others. A trillion is one THOUSAND billions, just so you know.

3

u/microsoftpaintt Jan 13 '23

There is exploitation in every economic system, it just manifests in different ways. I'm sure its possible to be that successful in our current economic system, you would just need significantly larger economies of scale and way more time to do it.

4

u/Josvan135 Jan 13 '23

Okay, and a million is a THOUSAND thousand, just so you know.

It's just inflation combined with the fact that there are 4 times as many people as there were a century ago, each of whom is statistically vastly richer than their ancestors.

Money is nothing but a representation of value.

People highly value apples products and services, so lots of people spend lots of money buying them.

Their manufacturing is messy, as is virtually every electronics manufacturing.

3

u/tehkier Jan 13 '23

Just because others exploit doesn't make it okay to exploit. It's not just inflation when you need to kill child labourers or drive your workers to suicide.

4

u/Josvan135 Jan 13 '23

Violations that Apple investigated, reported to Chinese authorities, and played a major role in stopping.

I get it, "big business bad", but cherry picking extreme cases while ignoring the massive improvements to overall global standard of living carried out over the last century is disingenuous at best.

4

u/Bitter_Coach_8138 Jan 14 '23

Reddit just wants to be edgy and socialist, that’s why

2

u/grimman Jan 14 '23

You're not wrong. But Apple being that big just blows my mind. It's been decades since they had an ounce of morality, and their products are very underwhelming for a tinkerer. It's their way, or get absolutely fucked. And they frequently change their mind, at which point it's their new way, or get triple fucked, bucko.

But I guess if you're into that...

Anyway, uh... a trillion dollar company is ridiculous, if it's Apple. ;)

2

u/OneAlmondLane Jan 13 '23

So you don't buy apple products?

-8

u/lamentheragony Jan 13 '23 edited Jan 13 '23

His compensation is $100 million p.a. He agreed to cut it so about $40 million p.a.

Not good enough Tim Cook!!! Pay back 99.9% of all your wealth and income for the past 30 years, YOU LOUSY CROOK!!!!!

8

u/CreamBeaner Jan 13 '23

Reddit moment

2

u/Lord_Abort Jan 13 '23

I would settle for companies and wealthy individuals to pay 5% annually.

-9

u/lamentheragony Jan 13 '23

not enough. need to pare them back so they are level largely with everyone else (apart from differences in their needs).

4

u/Lord_Abort Jan 13 '23

While it would flush the government at all levels with tons of liquidity, I'm pretty sure that would quickly destroy the economy. Man, I can't even imagine some of the ripples that would create.

2

u/Josvan135 Jan 13 '23

Cool cool, so then you don't want anyone with extraordinary skills, talents, or training to ever pursue high stress, highly responsible employment?

Because if everyone makes the same as your average ditch digger, I can assure you that no one is dealing with the kind of issues that a CEO is dealing with.

1

u/lamentheragony Jan 13 '23

There are imany ceos in Finland and nordics who do the same job for 1/1000th the pay. You do not need that size pay to find people to do the job.

2

u/Josvan135 Jan 14 '23

1/1000th the pay is $50,000, so I'm going to call bullshit on your figure there just from a basic numerical perspective.

How about you find some actual verifiable figures on Finnish, swedish, and Norwegian CEO pay.

You do not need that size pay to find people to do the job.

Yes, you 100% do.

Find me someone who's actually qualified to run a $2.14 trillion company for $50,000 and I'll show you a bridge I have for sale.

1

u/AJ-Taylor Jan 13 '23

As an EMT for $15, I'd like to hear more about the stress these poor CEOs need millions in compensation to cope with.

-1

u/Josvan135 Jan 14 '23

So when was the last decision you made that had implications for the livelihood and future of 200,000 employees?

You're an EMT, it's a noble profession, you do a lot of good, but you see an average of, what, 8-12 calls per shift?

So assuming you in your entire career, you'll directly impact up to 25,000 people over 40ish years.

The stress is the insane pressure of being in charge of that much of other people's money for decisions that you're directly responsible for, and that you'll be second guessed about at every step along the way.

0

u/AJ-Taylor Jan 14 '23

I'm not super interested in debating the most stressful professions, but I really don't think making those decisions would bother me personally. The stakes just aren't that high; people can get new jobs, other companies make phones, and it doesn't matter if people are mad at you if you never need to work another day in your life. But stress is subjective, so maybe Tim Cook is crying himself to sleep every night, I don't know.

I mostly just take issue with the idea that nobody would do that job without ludicrous compensation. Society is held together by people doing essential jobs that pay terribly, because they're passionate about them. Hell, my phone runs an operating system based on one created by people who just like building stuff for free. Running Apple is like Everest for thousands of nerdy tech guys. Elon just paid $44 billion so he could be CEO for his own ego. As long as something is difficult, important, or prestigious, people will want to do it.

2

u/Josvan135 Jan 14 '23

but I really don't think making those decisions would bother me personally. The stakes just aren't that high; people can get new jobs, other companies make phones, and it doesn't matter if people are mad at you if you never need to work another day in your life.

To be clear, this is exactly the reason you aren't and will not ever be qualified to run any serious company.

I'm not trying to be mean/argumentative here, but you just brushed off the importance of decisions that can financially ruin millions of people.

It's not just current apple employees, it's all the people with their 401k's filled with apple stock, and the suppliers who depend on apple.

You literally just said that you would "take your money and run".

So again, you're not even remotely qualified for the position.

Running Apple is like Everest for thousands of nerdy tech guys

Cool, that would be great if you wanted some nerdy tech guy, but you want a business virtuoso who also happens to be a ruthless, driven, and incredibly focused individual.

Your average tech bro can't make it managing a small development team, forget running the largest multinational company in the history of humanity.

Society is held together by people doing essential jobs that pay terribly,

Correct, most of whom are only in those jobs because they have virtually no skills and no ability to gain new skills.

→ More replies (0)