Totally agree. I'm guessing that those options are spread over the 10 years, so we're talking roughly $37m a year if the stock remains at the same price. It's just paper money until those options become liquid, and he's working at a big discount when compared to Jobs' 5.5+ million shares from 1997 until today (14 years).

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.

They're not options, they're stock grants, which vest at 5 and 10 years.

Good point, but the issue still stands - it's less stock per year than Jobs' compensation, not taking into account any other standard compensation that Cook will receive. My understanding of a grant is that the stock can be vested or restricted, although I assume that after a 5-year wait it will be vested when Cook receives it, so he'll owe taxes on it.

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.

Exactly. Apple seems to have no problem whatsoever hiring the best and brightest. In fact, I'd say it's what they do best, which is saying a lot.

So which is it: either Apple needs to pay people a shit-ton of money to come work for them, or they don't.

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.

Apple's software engineering salaries appear to be commensurate with Google's[1]. At the high end, Apple may pay less, but this might be an artifact of having 25% of the data points that are provided for Google.

> 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...