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Tim Cook: If You Don't Like Our Energy Policies, Don't Buy Apple Stock
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Nick Statt reports at Cnet that at Apple's annual shareholder meeting Friday, Apple CEO Tim Cook shot down the suggestion from a conservative, Washington, DC-based think tank that Apple give up on environmental initiatives that don't contribute to the company's bottom line. The National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), hasn't taken kindly to Apple's increasing reliance on green energy and said so in a statement issued to Apple ahead of the meeting. 'We object to increased government control over company products and operations, and likewise mandatory environmental standards,' said NCPPR General Counsel Justin Danhof demanding that the pledge be voted on at the meeting. 'This is something [Apple] should be actively fighting, not preparing surrender.' Cook responded that there are many things Apple does because they are right and just, and that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues. 'When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind. I don't consider the bloody ROI,' said Cook. 'We do a lot of things for reasons besides profit motive, We want to leave the world better than we found it.' Danhof's proposal was voted down and to any who found the company's environmental dedication either ideologically or economically distasteful, Cook advised 'if you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.'"
Surely energy policies are about creating a feel-good aspect to the brand. Plus if you learn something along the way by trying perhaps you can commercialize it and it takes you off on another wild ride, like the iPhone did.
Just because they don't understand it, doesn't mean they can run the company better.
The stockholders voted, and Apple's energy policy won easily.
The best interest of the shareholders is not always ROI in terms of money. Par example think of continuity which is far more important then short term profits.
The stockholders voted with Cook, saying that they, the owners of Apple, want their company to be environmentally responsible AND to acquiesce to government mandating how they do so. That puts him on solid legal ground, I believe.
What would get Cook in trouble would be putting his OWN well-being ahead of stockholder interests. If Apple were paying TimCook Inc a billion dollars for green services, that would be a problem. Cook is carrying out the expressed wishes of the stockholders, and is not enriching himself at their expense.
One more reason that I wont ever buy another apple product
Tim Cook telling these right-wing psychopaths to piss off is surely a reason to avoid buying Apple products.
What kind of bullshit is this? Extremist climate change deniers turning up in the Apple shareholder meeting, and trying to foist their idiotic "profit above anything" agenda on Apple, getting the response they deserve (actually, not _quite_ what they deserve, corporal punishment is what they deserve), and that makes you want to avoid Apple products?
If you had read TFS, you might have perceived that the shareholders voted in support of Tim's position.
What's with the FoxNews shills nowadays? Has slashdot been flagged by the NSA for enhanced interference?
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
And you seem to have forgotten how to follow the money. Those profits don't come out of thin air. Public opinion is entirely within the interests of stockholders and company owners. When shareholders become absolute greedy fucks they need a smack upside the head so they get some perspective.
So far there aren't many comments here, but all of them are sitting here flaming Tim Cook. No where in the articles linked did it say that shareholders (as a group) wanted this. In fact, if you RTA (the last linked one), you'll see that it received less than 3% of the vote. But people who are too afraid to post under a user name are also apparently all too happy to post that Cook is doing a disservice to his shareholders, even though the overwhelming majority of said shareholders agree with him.
So what should those that don't do? Buy something else. I don't get why people who are seemingly for the free market are up in arms about a company doing something their way and telling people that if they don't like it, they can go somewhere else. Just because the ROI in one company might not be as high as possible (according to a think tank, not a court of public opinion by any stretch, which is where Apple exceeds), doesn't mean that the company is doing a disservice to its shareholders, unless those shareholders are in it for the shortest term possible.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
Even if his policies are bad, 97.5% of stockholders voted to do it his way. The owners want to be green, so green it is.
Tim Cook is the CEO. His job is strategic planning: seeing where market trends are going, where technology is headed and the economy - including energy costs in the future - as best as humanly possible since nobody is clairvoyant.
The long term trend for the cost of fossil fuels is up. Even with all the "new" found oil and gas in the Continental US the price will go up. Why? Demand outstrips supply.
Asia. Those billions of people want to live like us Americans and we use 25% of the World's oil - for about 300 million people.
The oil companies are sucking it out of the ground as fast as they find it - well, including the time it takes to get a well producing, but you get my drift. In other words, the demand is increasingly MUCH faster than supply and unless some HUGE (another Saudi Arabia) economically viable reserve is found, oil and gas are going to go nowhere but up for the foreseeable future.
Green energy will continue to go down in price because many folks see the writing on the wall and frankly, some prefer clean air and water to profit.
Even the commie Chinese are investing heavily in green energy.
So, what does this mean for Apple? If they want to stay competitive in the future, they BETTER go green.
You should have bought 1000 shares like I did. As of today it's value is 1200% higher than the day I bought it. That pisses you off, doesn't it?
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
Are you familiar with the law? It doesn't define best interest. Not all shareholders a motivated purely by profit. Those that are motivated as such had an opportunity to vote him out of power (the law is on their side for that), but they couldn't garner enough interest.
not only does apple control everything about the phones we buy, but they think they can tell the owners to fuck off? One more reason that I wont ever buy another apple product
The owners agreed with Cook - the right wing loonie didn't get support from the rest of the shareholders. Which makes sense, as Apple needs not only to have the current premium products associated with its brand, but align with its potential customers - and above all, avoid really bad associations. Or just being boring.
Image is very important for premium brands - and that's what the majority of the shareholders wants Tim Cook to continue to cultivate, alongside its innovation focus.
Will you people just stop with the "owners" bullshit, are people really this ignorant about how a public company operates? Cook is a substantial shareholder, the other owners listened carefully to both sides, then promptly told the other guy to fuck off. This is a non story, voting down idiots at a shareholders meeting is routine business.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
What was implicit in his statement is that Apple's energy policies are extremely important to the company and are overwhelmingly supported by Apple's shareholders. i.e. if you're among the tiny minority of shareholders who disagrees then your only options are to deal with it or sell your shares. Implied is that a campaign to force management to abandon the policies is doomed to failure given their broad support.
Stock holders don't own the company. If they owned the company, they would be liable for any debt if the company goes bankrupt.
Stockholders do indeed own the company. Laws limit the liability of stockholders' in a publicly held corporation to encourage that type of investment. Capitalism runs on investment.
Buying stocks or even the products of a company that supports Greenies is not a responsible act.
And buying the stocks of a company that ignores the law is somehow more responsible? Basically they were asking Tim Cook to ignore the federal mandates on green energy.
Even apart from that moronic idea, locally the number of datacenters we can actually place here in the country is now limited by the capacity of the grid. Doing small scale experiments on how to diminish that reliance, or even go off-grid on a large scale, is very likely to be a smart move. And that is not even taking into account the fact that in the country next door they are actually paying companies to use energy on days they have too much free energy (wind and solar). It makes the energy-intensive companies so competitive that a big one in this country has just gone bankrupt. Making sure that Apple retains an ability to mix and match between different energy providers is just sensible business, however you look at it.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
HEADLINE
Right Wing Ideologues looking for Publicity get their asses handed to them.
The NCPPR were only trying to raise their own profile by attacking Apple's policy, nothing more.
Funny how the good folks at the NCPPR didn't demand that Apple stop their philanthropic activities, which by NCPPR logic would also hurt shareholder value. For some reason, they only objected to Apple's "green" initiatives...I wonder why?
Either way, those "think tank" guys should go back to school and learn how capital assets are actually priced. If the NCPPR had gotten their way, it's likely that Apple's stock price would have gone down, not up.
No, Tim Cook should be praised because he stood up to the right-wing idiots and told them where to stuff it, instead of treating them like an equal partner in a sensible debate.
The right-wing thinktanks have been flooding debates with PR puff pieces (also known as 'lies') instead of facts, and it is high time they got called on it.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
... could the ethical operation of a company be characterized as irresponsible.
Which is wrong. The executives and board need to be legally liable.
Then you will not have a corporation. The ENTIRE point of a corporation is to separate personal liability from ownership. No one in their right mind would agree to accept unlimited personal liability for the actions of an entire company, most of which they do not control. Make the executives and board liable for all actions and corporations will cease to exist which is a Very Bad Thing.
shareholders need to be financially liable based on the percentage of stock held.
They are financially at risk. If the company goes belly up, the shareholders are last in line to get paid. They carry the most risk. Bondholders are typically first in line to get paid from any bankruptcy or liquidation.
Consider buying a car. If you bought a used car, you did not pay the manufacturer. Using your logic, you would not own the car.
Just because someone who buys a share of Apple stock did not buy it directly from Apple does not mean that Apple did not originally benefit from the first sale (or grant) of the stock. It did. In the case of an IPO, a company is selling stock. The company receives money in exchange for that stock. The stock is now an asset that can be re-sold. In the case of employee stock, the company is paying the employee with stock in lieu of paying cash, so the company is trading its stock for the work of the employee -- the company received a benefit in exchange for stock which is now an an asset that can be re-sold
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Those 'conservatives' at the meeting were really agitating for Apple to make decisions based on their short-term ROI rather than their long-term ROI. Short-term decisions are necessary but a healthy company rarely does them. For example, many companies, including Apple, spend a lot of money on research. Research costs a lot of money, has an uncertain return on the expenditure, and a lot of time passes before that return is ever realized. From a short-term perspective, companies should never spend money on research but should instead just pass all of the money on to their shareholders. Yet, if companies operated in that way, they would go out of business fairly quickly. So...that is the beauty of the free enterprise system. It leaves companies free to operate in what they see as their overall best long-term interests and often, those are as Apple's Tim Cook presented them rather than as the 'conservative' shareholders wanted. When shareholders gain too much influence over the daily operations and decisions of the company, it usually leads to the company's demise as shareholders seek to transfer cash assets to their pockets and leave the company limping along and struggling to continue. However, that just means that the company's competitors pick up the business that the wounded company can no longer compete for. Ultimately, it's a self-correcting system, as long as there is a competitive marketplace with no one company grown so large as to monopolize all of the business.
Then they aren't held accountable for what they told the company to do.
Should citizen voters be liable for prison time if they elect a senator who turns out to be corrupt?
Directors and officers of a corporation have a fiduciary duty to the stockholders to run the company in their interest.
This USUALLY means trying to maximize return on investment. But the sotckholders may want other things, in addition to or in place of, financial gain. When this is the case, the duty requires them to set their own target appropriately.
This is not uncommon: Think "green energy company" or "church" for two examples. The Bell Telephone company, started by Alexander G. out of his research into hearing aids, has always done work on assisting the hearing impaired. Hershey's, at the direction of its founder, is owned by a trust and 30% of its profits go to support a school for orphans.
One typical strategy is to "satisfice", rather than maximize, financial gain, while pursuing other interests. This produces a sound financial base for pursuing those interests. (i.e. Hershey's, churches, "green companies"...) Another is to do things that are win-win with respect to the business (i.e. Bell Telephone, doing things like designing phones to work well with hearing aids, make ringing sounds that are auddible to the partially deaf and light-flashing ringer devices, and otherwise making the phone system accessable to hearing impaired.)
As you point out, these approaches may also lead to financial benefits that typical businesses and business-school graduate executives miss in their pursuit of the short-term bottom line. Good will, new inventions, synergies, etc.
Another example: Hershey's, not constrained or incentivized by short-term bottom-line, doesn't use typical industrial-food ingredients such as corn syrup, or follow other food-processing fads. It sticks with basic, high quality, time-proven, ingredients and recipies. This produces a consistent product (which also forms the base for consumer recipies) and a loyal customer base. (No "New Coke" debacle or gradual deterioration of product quality over decades with this company.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The NCPPR wasn't trying to get Tim Cook riled up....they were trying to make millions of stockholders aware that Al Gore, whom both the left and right recognize as a nutjob, is the board member driving some weird decisions at Apple, and that Tim is backing him.
That's a lot of nutjob conspiracy accusations without any evidence there. Dell has green initiatives, and I can without a doubt say Al Gore has nothing to do with them.
Al doesn't know the first thing about computers. And he's on the board of directors at Apple.
Dina Dublon knows nothing about software yet she's on the board of Microsoft. I daresay, most of IBM's board knows nothing about IT services. Having technical knowledge about a company's products isn't a requisite for most boards.
And he's working (and succeeding) at driving Apple board discussions away from how to make computing devices and into "how to fight climate change." He's shifting the company away from what they're good at into something new, and political.
Unless you are present and have firsthand knowledge of the Gore's interaction with Apple, you can't claim this.
"Hey! You guys hired Lisa, the former head of the EPA to be a decision maker at Apple. What sense does that make? What qualifications does she have to make decisions for a tech company?"
A simple Google search and Apple's announcement shows you that she's in charge of Apple's environmental programs. I would think that her job at the Environmental Protection Agency would qualify her for such a position.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Of course they voted it down, their energy policy is good marketing for their target audience. The bottom line is still the reason for the policy.
Sustainability is still a good thing to be going for... regardless of whether they're doing it for marketing reasons, or because they believe that 50 years from now there won't be any more coal fired power plants, doesn't really matter. Investing in renewable energy sources now is the smart thing to do regardless of whether you take an optimistic or pessimistic view of why they're doing it.
Of course they voted it down, their energy policy is good marketing for their target audience. The bottom line is still the reason for the policy.
Actually, as someone who tends towards the conservative side of things, I'm 100% happy to see that Cook said what he did. ROI is not the end-all, be-all of running a company, and worshipping it to the exclusion of all other considerations is a bad thing for any company to do. I also like the sustainability movement they're taking... it's not a "surrender" to "government intrusion" as the NCPPR is claiming. The government has no hand in how a company decides to get its electricity, and a sustainable solution does make good long-term sense.
Stereotypes aside, he "target audience" is not as homogeneous as you think. I strongly suspect that my ideological leanings clash very hard against those held by the "target audience" you're thinking of, but I mostly prefer Apple's products because they're quite solid, and in my experience last far longer than anything I've ever bought from its competitors. There are exceptions of course (I prefer having an Android phone so I can tinker with it), but overall the "target audience" doesn't buy an iPhone or MacBook Pro because the company is somehow approved by The Right People(tm). I posit that they buy the products either because of the reputation of solid products with excellent customer service, or they buy 'em because of some fashionable cachet.
Consider a parallel: Linux' old-school maintainers included everything from flaming ideologues for the 'progressive' side (Alan Cox IIRC was among this number), and flaming ideologues for the 'conservative' side (Eric Raymond stands out here, very strongly.) Yet everyone agreed on a few politically-neutral philosophies centered around Open Source, and a strong disdain for the slipshod-but-monopolistic coding practices of a certain dominant competitor.
Long story short, Apple made their business decisions not out of some stupid political ploy, but have laid out strong and logically sound philosophical reasons for doing what they do. Folks may not agree with them, but at least there they are, and they're not hidden behind some mealy-mouthed corporate-PR-speak.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?