Or they could use the money they have and give everyone including Cook huge raises. Or cut everyone's pay and make their stuff cheaper. Or pay their suppliers 20% more. Or put a huge check in some charity basket. Statements like these are pointless.
I'll suggest that it's very likely that Tim Cook would have never come to work at Apple if they paid executives 40-60% less then they do as you suggest. And that would have been a net loss for Apple.
I don't have a problem with this at all. $300M is about 1/1000 of the current market cap. The rewards are spread over 10 years. So 1/10000 per year to have a world class CEO running the company. Would I pay that? Gladly.
What's the difference between 580 million and, say, 200 million? It's funny money either way, and the person's quality of work is going to depend on other motivations.
Christ, what total lunacy.
And what if Cook decided this is bullshit, and goes? Then what? That's right, total implosion. And for nothing.
And by the way, since when is 'cheap' a part of anything that Apple does?
Y'all really don't think they could've gotten him for cheaper?
Pay more, demand more, get more. Only idiots (or the truly broke) focus on cheap when they're standing in the spotlight. What you really want is value. And given that their stock didn't crater in what is, again, the most sensitive transition imaginable, their non-asshole savvy already paid for itself several times over in the last 48 hours alone.
If you're going to cut corners, play lowball, or just or drive a hard bargain, fine. But be sure you're doing it in places where you can afford to lose he deal.
Look, I'm not an Apple investor and I haven't bought any apple products in the last couple years or so, I really don't care and it's not my business. But with my read on human nature, the guy would do the same exact job for 10 mil a year as he would for 58 mil a year.
People need to recognize how grotesque it is that you have a CEO barely being taxed on their income compared to what they would've been taxed during the greatest economic boom of the past twenty years.
I'm an AAPL shareholder, and I support the board's largesse. Pay him more for all I care, as long as he delivers and my stock appreciates. I would love it if the US government would, relative to the current situation, tax the shit out of me and Tim, both.
> enabling Apple to hire better people across the board
I'll make an assertion of my own: I don't think this is true for a second.
So yeah, taking into consideration that Apple is suddenly working with a CEO that arguably requires less compensation than Jobs, my issue isn't with the amount, but rather how he's taxed and more broadly, the large divide between the top income tax bracket (35%+) and capital gains (15%) which is really terrible, considering that it consitutes an enormous tax loophole for people who earn their income via investments, rather than a traditional wage.
That's probably why a 5-year period also favors Cook because Apple will be required to withhold tax on the market value of the stock, and it's tricky how that withholding is paid - for cash grants they withhold a percentage of that sum to satisfy the estimated tax, but unfortunately for stock grants, sometimes the grantee is required to pay that estimated withholding to his/her company if they don't have enough cash compensation to offset it. I'm interested to hear how Cook gets around that $100m+ tax liability, but he has 5 years to prepare.
Most of the commenters in this thread feel, as you do, that CEOs need to be paid a shit-ton of money, or else they would never work for Apple, but the rank-and-file do not need to be paid a lot of money, because Apple is such a great company to work for. Can you explain the discontinuity? Why is Apple great to work for as a peon, but terrible to work for as a CEO? Why does extra money paid to a CEO definitely and absolutely result in a better CEO, but extra money paid for employees won't get them better employees?
Keep in mind the studies that show highly paid CEOs underperform low-paid ones when you answer.
> Why does extra money paid to a CEO definitely and absolutely result in a better CEO
When did I say this?
> Keep in mind the studies that show highly paid CEOs underperform low-paid ones when you answer.
I'd love to see these studies. I'm very curious to see how these CEOs' compensation packages are structured.
If you go back through my comments from the past week, you'll run into this one: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2907364. Although you didn't mention this, I think it's still relevant to this conversation.
The key difference between Tim Cook and, say, Leo Apotheker is that Tim's been at Apple for 12 or 13 years, and plans to be there for another 10 at least. He's been inculcated in the culture, and still has to answer to one of the co-founders. I doubt Leo lasts longer than three years. What does Leo care if the company's long-term strategic positions are weakened as long as he maximizes his compensation package?
[1] http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Apple-Software-Engineer-Sala... and http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Software-Engineer-Sal...
Besides, that is not his salary or anything. Who knows, he might follow in the tradition of Steve Jobs and take a $1 salary.
Steve Jobs sure as hell was. And Tim's job has been to execute Jobs' vision.
People need to recognize how grotesque it is that you have a CEO making $160,000 per day, every day.
Take it to Reddit.
Tim Cook alone is taking home 5% of all the money Apple spends on employee compensation worldwide. If you cut down Cook's compensation a little bit, everyone else at Apple could get a couple percent raise.
Which one would REALLY be better for the company: paying every single Apple employee a couple percent more enabling Apple to hire better people across the board, or paying it all to the CEO?
People need to recognize how grotesque it is that you have a CEO making $160,000 per day, every day.