Answers From Steve Jobs at Apple's Shareholder Meeting

DECS writes "At today's Apple annual shareholder meeting, a series of proposals were presented for voting after which CEO Steve Jobs answered a series of questions from the audience. Jobs talked about Greenpeace, stock options, the iPhone, Mac OS X Leopard, and .Mac."

Comments

Re:Can Apple to hire him for less than $7.50/hr?

[Billy the Impaler]

I thought the CA minimum wage was $7.50 an hour. The minimum wage applies to hourly workers. Salaried workers are free to negotiate any contract they wish so long as it plays by the other rules.

Re:roughlydrafted.com article == blog entry?

[Anonymous Coward]

RoughlyDrafted.com is pro-Apple. However, the lines that got your BS-detector buzzing are false positive. They are not BS. Google News around and you'll find out that Greenpeace indeed took credit for Apple's announcement. Not only did they take credit, they lied about what the credit was for. What Jobs said was Apple would change their policy regarding communicating their existing plans and achievements. Greenpeace pretended that Apple would change their plans to be greener and took credit for it. Greenpeace is a bunch of scums who capitalize on people's concern for the environment. Avoid Greenpeace, help other environmental groups.

Re:roughlydrafted.com article == blog entry?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Daniel Eran was busted spamming digg and consquently banned.

Not only is that site biased, but it attempts to push its bias onto other sites. I think it's a real pity that Slashdot accepts submissions from there.

Re:roughlydrafted.com article == blog entry?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

I completely agree with your post apart from the sentence

Hes a complete and utter Apple shill,

I find it hard to believe that Apple would pay someone to write a blog as stupid & irritating as Roughly Drafted. Their money's better spent on more subtle shillery.

Re:Or maybe...

[falcon5768]

No he was. I worked as a Apple Rep back in 00-02, and my boss used to tell me stories about him. People at Apple really WHERE scared of him when he came back as CEO (rather iCEO at the time) While Im sure he wanted that image to get people at Apple doing their best (since he is a well known perfectionist) you dont get that image by petting kitties and buying ice cream for little kids.

As it was not long after he told me some of the stories, he and 700 other people in the Education branch of Apple where fired for poor job performance and restructuring. While a number got their jobs back in other departments, he was one of the ones let go and not rehired.

Re:Jobs on his salary:

[dr.badass]

He is the highest paid executive in the US, and still manages to get focus on his 1$ salary PR stunt.

Highest paid in 2006. He doesn't have huge stock option grants vesting every year. From the Forbes profile you linked to is very telling:

Total Compensation (2006)
$646.60 mil

5-Year Compensation Total
$650.17 mil

In other words, over 99% of his compensation for the past five years came from last year alone. During that time AAPL went from about $12 to over $100.

Re:Anyone notice a change in Jobs?

[UnknowingFool]

Dude--he made $646.6 MILLION dollars last year

Technically he received $646.6 million in stock compensation which really is not the same thing. As stock, their value isn't realized until he cashes out which he has not done yet. If Apple stock splits and doubles in the next year (which it has done in the last 2 years), that stock will be worth $1.2 billion if he ever cashes out.

Re:do something with the cash!

[UnknowingFool]

I take it that you didn't read Apple's Annual report 10-K statement back in December. On pg 60:

Research and Development (R&D)

Expenditures for R&D increased 33% or $177 million to $712 million in 2006 compared to $535 million in 2005. The increase was due primarily to an increase in R&D headcount in the current year to support expanded R&D activities, an increase of $46 million in stock-based compensation recognized as R&D expense resulting from the adoption of SFAS No. 123R, and higher overall expenses due to the 14th week added to the first fiscal quarter of 2006 to realign the Company's fiscal quarters with calendar quarters. In addition, during 2005, the Company capitalized approximately $29.7 million of costs associated with the development of Mac OS X Tiger. No software development costs were capitalized during 2006. Further information related to the Company's capitalization of software development costs may be found in Part II, Item 8 of this Form 10-K at Note 1 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements. Despite the increase in expenditures, R&D as a percentage of net sales remained relatively flat in 2006 as compared to 2005 due to the significant increase in revenue. The Company continues to believe that focused investments in R&D are critical to its future growth and competitive position in the marketplace and are directly related to timely development of new and enhanced products that are central to the Company's core business strategy. As such, the Company expects to make further investments in R&D to remain competitive.

On pg 68:

Capital Expenditures

The Company's total capital expenditures were $657 million during 2006, consisting of $200 million for retail store facilities and equipment related to the Company's Retail segment, $263 million for real estate acquisitions for the Company's second corporate campus and for a new data center, and $194 million for corporate infrastructure, including information systems enhancements. The Company currently anticipates it will utilize approximately $675 million for capital expenditures during 2007, including approximately $360 million for expansion of the Company's Retail segment, approximately $50 million for real estate acquisitions including the Company's second corporate campus and its new data center, and approximately $265 million to support normal replacement of existing capital assets and enhancements to general information technology infrastructure.

Stock Repurchase Plan

In July 1999, the Company's Board of Directors authorized a plan for the Company to repurchase up to $500 million of its common stock. This repurchase plan does not obligate the Company to acquire any specific number of shares or acquire shares over any specified period of time. The Company has repurchased a total of 13.1 million shares at a cost of $217 million under this plan and was authorized to repurchase up to an additional $283 million of its common stock as of September 30, 2006.

With that in mind, Apple spent $712 million last year in R&D and they increased spending from the previous year. Also they are using the cash apparently to expand the business by acquiring real estate for new stores while upgrading their infrastructure. And they are buying back stock.