This is a lot any way you look at it, but before everyone jumps in to compare to other things, it's worth noting that this was agreed 10 years ago, and the value is down to two things: 1) hitting targets that earned him this amount, and 2) the amount being in terms of shares, not dollar value, which he has essentially 10x'd the value of in his tenure.<p>If Apple had not roughly 10x'd in value over the last decade this would be a ~75m payout, and that's not even accounting for the fact that a lot of this was likely tied to increasing the share price.<p>It's an obscene amount of money, but it's not today's Apple giving Tim Cook $750m, it's 2011's Apple agreeing to give him 5m shares if he did well.<p>Edit: Misread the article, "191.83% over the last three years"!
So many sour comments. When Tim Cook took the place of the legendary you know who, every reviewers is worried about Apple's future, and Tim's not doing a so bad job after all. Most of his investments paid off, and Apple's performance has remained stable and has grown.<p>Tim deserves credit for running such an successful operation. Do you really think those running-up phone makers aren't looking for someone like Tim? The competition in the phone market is real.<p>Although we could also argue Tim failed in a way with the rise of Huawei and Xiaomi where we had to block the competitors via 'national security' concerns.
From the article :
"In 2015, Mr Cook said he would give away his entire fortune before he dies, and is known to have donated tens of millions of dollars to charity".<p>Success during one's life , paying it back to make the society a better place once gone. Take a bow, Mr Cook. What more can one ask for in a lifetime :)
This actually seems like a totally appropriate reward for 10x’ing the value of the company.<p>Compared to the total value of the company, if anything it seems small.
Given that Apple's stock price is up about $2.2 trillion since the award it doesn't seem to out of place for him to capture 0.034% of that value.
> <i>In 2015, Mr Cook said he would give away his entire fortune before he dies, and is known to have donated tens of millions of dollars to charity.</i><p>I'm normally a proponent of reducing income inequality. But this has got me thinking. Is the world actively better off when billionaires like Cook/Gates/Buffett make a ton of money.<p>Consider the alternative: someone in the 75th percentile of USA income gets a fat raise. Most of this money is spent on a nicer house, a nicer car, eating out, going on vacation, etc. Contrast this against a billionaire who has signed the giving pledge. They spend a small fraction of this money on themselves. And the majority ends up going to charitable causes such as educational initiatives, HIV research, deworming, clean drinking water, etc.<p>Ironically, big payouts (and tax breaks) for billionaires* would do more to help the needy, compared to raises for the upper-middle-class.<p>*This only applies to those billionaires who have committed to donating most of their wealth of course
When will the people understand, that if you force the equality, it'll result in mediocrity?<p>USSR has learned this lesson the hard way, so it is sad to see how many well-off Americans a rushing head first into it voluntarily?<p>Trust me, you won't like the results. You have a 200square meters house? Nobody needs that many space, and also there are so many homeless in Los Angeles. You take two rooms 24square meters each, and the rest of the house would be distributed among the needy.<p>Do you like this perspective? This was the first thing done when Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, I'm not kidding. All in the name of equality.
So according to this 2018 article by The Verge [1], Foxconn workers producing iGadgets in China earn on average $390.16 per month.<p>Times that by twelve and we find that workers earn $4,681.92 per year on average.<p>If we divide Tim's $750,000,000 bonus/payout this year by that $4,681.92 yearly Foxconn salary, we get 160,190<p>My question is: how is Tim so productive that he does roughly 160,000 people’s work, or 1/8th of Foxconn’s total workforce? [2] /s<p>The contrast between working conditions is also interesting:<p><i>“The [Foxconn] factory has no medical facilities or hospital on site, so any injured workers have to be transported to a hospital that’s farther away. Another work hazard is the lack of fire safety: there are no exits or labeled escape routes and no fire safety drills. Similar to other factories that China Labor Watch has reported on, there’s no labor union for the Hengyang workers. There’s a process for filing complaints, but the workers don’t believe it does any good.”</i><p>Which seems quite a contrast to ‘Apple Park’ where Tim works.<p>What makes Apple treat Chinese workers so differently?<p>[1] <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/11/17448544/amazon-foxconn-worker-conditions-benefits-stripped-low-wages-chinese-factory" rel="nofollow">https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/11/17448544/amazon-foxconn-w...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+foxconn+employees" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+foxconn+employees</a>
I just simply cannot agree with anyone who believes that 10 years of work is worth $750 million. Even if the thinking is that doing the correct decitions is worth much more to the company, I will still just simply refuse to accept that this level of compensation is right on the larger context of human society.
Good for him. Pretty cool to see especially given that paying him these shares was agreed 10 years ago and Apple stock has crushed it since then.<p>It's kind of weird to see some other comments attacking rich people just because they're rich, or completely misunderstanding the role of a CEO.
Perhaps it's takes a certain breed of people, but I'm not sure what I would DO with $750m. Buy a super-yacht I guess? Invest the money and make 10x more of it? But then what?<p>We've seen the new space race, but that domain seems crowded at the moment.<p>Use the money to cure cancer or other global health problems? Wealthy people don't tend to spend their money like that (Bill Gates being an exception). Why is this?<p>Buy influence and dictate politicians in backroom deals? Seems pretty cynical, but a possibility.
Relevant (to me): This is due to the deal Apple made with Tim a decade ago. I took a screenshot of HN the day Jobs died. I also have the WSJ from that day, but it's buried in a box somewhere.<p><a href="https://ibb.co/g66DKhx" rel="nofollow">https://ibb.co/g66DKhx</a>
off-topic
What people exactly do with their billions of dollar in their 60s or 70s?<p>Is it worth working whole life to get a lots of game coin in the end of life?<p>How about working till 40 to earn enough money for the rest the of life?
When did HN start hating on people like Tim Cook instead of having the arrogance and the self-confidence to think that someday you'd be making that sort of coin?
I know that most of you will not understand, but every problem that I have with Apple started in the moment when this guy become CEO.<p>I am utterly disgusted. More than two weeks no adequate response over CSAM and "scanning" of all devices and already media is pushing the "new shiny things are coming" and PR for the Tim Apple.<p>This is sickness on whole new level. Just sayin.
This is obscene. He didn't make any iPhone or other device nor worked behind the counter, yet he takes the money that could have been redistributed among the workers.
Despicable man.