r/technology 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/kent_eh Jan 13 '23

He then put it to the shareholders to vote and they agreed, about 66% in favor of the new compensation package.

I just hope the funds saved will remain in employee compensation and be redirected to the employees

If the shareholders wanted it, then they'll be the ones getting any extra money.

I would be shocked if they voted for anything other than their own personal enrichment.

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u/BigGreen4 Jan 13 '23 edited Jan 13 '23

Which is a good and valid point that CEO’s are not the one’s who control employee wages long-term. It’s the shareholders.

If Tim Cook gave all employees a 50% raise - everybody’s happy in the world. Until earnings come out, and the company (likely) underperforms. When a company underperforms, their shares tend to lose value. When the stock loses value, the shareholders lose money. The shareholders then pressure the board to fire the CEO (Tim Cook). New CEO moves in, cuts wages to get earnings back in line, and we’re back where we started.

Yet everyone points their fingers at the CEO.

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u/beavedaniels Jan 13 '23

Part of the CEOs job is to be the one who gets the finger pointed at them.

It's like the commissioners of the major sports leagues. They accept huge amounts of compensation in return for being the villain, so the real villains can continue doing fucked up shit behind closed doors.

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u/ChillyBearGrylls Jan 13 '23

They accept huge amounts of compensation in return for being the villain, so the real villains can continue doing fucked up shit behind closed doors

Amusingly, that also describes Ticketmaster et al - they would have no price setting ability if venues and performers didn't work with them. TM is the 'heel' in the story.

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u/beavedaniels Jan 13 '23

Yep! No shortage of people and organizations willing to trade the moral high ground for money haha

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u/FuujinSama Jan 13 '23

It's ridiculous, even. Venues have limited tickets. Clearly, there are enough people willing to buy the inflated """"scalper"""" prices. So why not set that as the initial sell price?

Instead they pretend concerts are still "affordable" and sell cheap tickets that they themselves immediately buy to sell again at the correct price. This in turn means the people that fail to buy the affordable tickets in time blame "scalpers" and "ticket master" instead of blaming the venues and artists for having the ridiculous but correct pricing.

In truth, it's all just an artifact of huge wealth inequality. If there's an event in demand with limited lotation (say 10,000 seats), the price of that event is what the 10,000 richest people that want to see the event can afford. In a world with huge wealth inequality that might be $500 or it might be $1000 whereas a reasonable price for the average worker would be $50 or lower.

Poor people will soon be unable to attend any sort of concert. That's just how it is. No money at all in filling a venue with poor people when there are enough rich people willing to pay. This wouldn't magically change if we added laws against scalpers or anything was made about ticketmaster. The only change would be venues and artists coming clean with the whole deal.

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u/mloofburrow Jan 14 '23

Except that Ticketmaster owns the venues and forces the artists to use them if they want to perform at said venues. So... no. Ticketmaster is still the asshole here.