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Apple Cuts Tim Cook's Pay After 2016 Performance Falls Short (cnbc.com)

Apple cut CEO Tim Cook's 2016 pay after the iPhone maker missed its revenue and profit goals for the year. From a report on CNBC: Although Cook's annual salary went up by $1 million, he received $8.75 million in total compensation for the year, according to an SEC filing posted on Friday, down from the $10.28 million he received in 2015. Company executives received about 89.5 percent of their targeted annual incentives. The company said its annual sales were down nearly 4 percent, or $215.6 billion, from its target of $223.6 billion, and its operating income was down 0.5 percent from its target at $60 billion, according to the filing.Apple last year faced declining revenue as it grappled with the first prolonged slump in iPhone sales. The salary of some other executives were also trimmed.

336 comments

  1. Woo hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Yeah! Samsung!

    1. Re: Woo hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, they're on fire!

    2. Re: Woo hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah Bro, like hot cakes! Selling like hot cakes!

      Go Dear Leader!

    3. Re: Woo hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see what you did there. North Koreans and South Koreans look the same, so we'll show our lack of culture by not implying there is no difference. Clever. Not exactly /. clever, but sophiticated enough for a youtube comment.

    4. Re:Woo hoo by Black.Shuck · · Score: 1

      Yeah! Samsung!

      Ooooh, so companies are like football teams?

      Yeah! Consumer choice!

      (Am I doing it right?)

    5. Re: Woo hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No No No! Not that's like shouting "Go NFL!".

      You gotta pick a team dude.
      Go Samsung! Or Go Google! Or Go Nameless Chinese clone!

    6. Re: Woo hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm referring to Dear Leader Choi Soon Sil!

      Now back off dog!

    7. Re: Woo hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      South Koreans don't look like North Koreans, because they don't eat their own children to survive. You are what you eat, right?

    8. Re: Woo hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I'd be pissed if mybonus was down one million and it was only 7 million this year. Maybe I can't afford to get an IPhone 7 because I've been suffering under the Obama administration for 8 years and couldn't swing it this time? I might get the iPhone 8, whenever it releases...

  2. Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Thin will be in until he's removed as CEO. HP made their laptop 1.8mm thicker for a third more battery life in order to drive their 17" 4K monitor. Apple needs to do the same.

    1. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by tbuddy · · Score: 0, Troll

      HP added the thickness to their 15" laptop and not a 17" only to cover the increased need to power a screen that has more resolution than what someone will notice. I don't call that a design accomplishment so much as obligation to account for a 4k display that no one really is going to need in a 15" screen. verge article. Apple dumped 17" laptops years ago. Very few people give a shit about 17" laptops.

    2. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure if Tim Cook is the one driving all the thinness, he seems to be more of a guy who just looks at the numbers (given his background in supply chain management). I suspect it's Jony Ive that's been pushing for all the thinness lately.

    3. Re: Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck off. Any example is better than fucking HP. HP need to do way way more than just have more Batt life.

    4. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by tinkerton · · Score: 1

      So do many people give a shit about 4k screens I wonder. On laptops that is.

    5. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People definitely notice the difference between 720 and 1080 on their 5" phone screens. Why do you think no one would notice 4k on a 15" screen?

      That HP 4k screen still isn't as high density as the outdated 720 phone screens. People might not notice when the industry moves past 8k. Until then, fighting a resolution increase is a case of "Old man yells at cloud."

    6. Re: Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah actually HP just need to disappear... ... for good.

      HP is like the Blackberry of laptops. No name Chinese Brands have more hope than them regaining half their past glory.

    7. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's also easier for a GPU to drive a higher resolution display than it is to handle quality AA.

    8. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by phorm · · Score: 1

      4k seems to be a bit overkill for a 17" or less monitor. A 2k widescreen resolution would probably be nice.

    9. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by barc0001 · · Score: 2

      I think it's complete overkill on anything less than a 27" personally. Even then, I have a 2560x1440 32" I use and find that's pretty much the perfect balance for me.

    10. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by lactose99 · · Score: 0

      640x480 ought to be enough for anyone.

      -Bill Gates

      --
      Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
    11. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And dipshits like you will keep regurgitating this same boring shit until you figure out that thin sells, and nobody wants giant heavy devices.

    12. Re: Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You also have to consider distance from display. Assuming that your eyesight is at 20/20 or lower (which is not the case for most people), and that you use your laptop at 50cm distance, then 15" screen at 1440p is just above the resolution of your eyesight.
      So you are right, 2160p will be beneficial. Past that, the benefits will drop drastically.

    13. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You clearly have no idea what you're talking about and have never used an Apple laptop and just like to shoot your mouth off. My MBP has the nicest display I've ever seen on a laptop. You might be the jealous one.

    14. Re: Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Macbook Amature 2016 is a stupid junk. Only apologist in denial will not see that.

    15. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by timholman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Thin will be in until he's removed as CEO. HP made their laptop 1.8mm thicker for a third more battery life in order to drive their 17" 4K monitor. Apple needs to do the same.

      The fact that Apple significantly reduced the capacity of the batteries in the 2016 models just to make them thinner says volumes about the design choices going on behind the scenes. It's all part and parcel with the removal of the MagSafe connectors, the removal of all ports except USB-C. The people who are deciding how a "professional" laptop should be designed are clearly not using a laptop in a professional capacity.

    16. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by lgw · · Score: 1

      If Apple craters the company by ignoring customer feedback it will be, what, the third time?

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    17. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by Tharkkun · · Score: 1

      Thin will be in until he's removed as CEO. HP made their laptop 1.8mm thicker for a third more battery life in order to drive their 17" 4K monitor. Apple needs to do the same.

      The fact that Apple significantly reduced the capacity of the batteries in the 2016 models just to make them thinner says volumes about the design choices going on behind the scenes. It's all part and parcel with the removal of the MagSafe connectors, the removal of all ports except USB-C. The people who are deciding how a "professional" laptop should be designed are clearly not using a laptop in a professional capacity.

      They are designing it around what accessories/peripherals they can squeeze out of you after the purchase while keeping their products the same price. The total cost of ownership for the new Macbooks is going up a few hundred dollars per person.

    18. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by SeaFox · · Score: 1

      HP made their laptop 1.8mm thicker for a third more battery life in order to drive their 17" 4K monitor. Apple needs to do the same.

      First Apple has to offer a laptop with a screen larger than 15" again.

    19. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by dgatwood · · Score: 2

      Except that what they forgot was that if we wanted a [expletive deleted] iPad with a keyboard, we would have bought one. We buy a MacBook( | Air| Pro) because it gets the job done, and as soon as they remove parts that we depend on, or compromise it in such a way that it no longer gets the job done, we'll wait to buy an upgrade until they fix it, or if necessary, switch platforms entirely.

      Things got so bad this time that OWC is in the planning stages for a product called DEC that adds back most of the stuff that Apple has removed over the past four years. If it were time for me to upgrade my MBP, were it not for the horribly dangerous USB-C connector sticking out of the side of the laptop, I'd buy one of those in a heartbeat. Heck yes, give me a thicker MBP with real storage, a full set of ports, more battery, etc. (That said, it absolutely needs HDMI, or else it still isn't quite ready.)

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    20. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by timholman · · Score: 1

      Things got so bad this time that OWC is in the planning stages for a product called DEC that adds back most of the stuff that Apple has removed over the past four years.

      I have to say that the concept intrigues me, but it can't work the way the mockup shows. The DEC would have to connect to at least one of the USB-C ports. I wonder how they intend to address that.

      Regardless, it is an accessory that I would purchase in a heartbeat if I was forced to buy a 2016 model. Better that than carry around a bunch of dongles.

    21. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try explaining any of this to Apple fanatics. Every time I bring any of these issues up I'm immediately labeled a troll because some guy who edits 4K video professionally loves his new MacBook Pro.

    22. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by labnet · · Score: 1

      I use a 4K xps15 laptop with a 27" external 4K monitor.
      I have no problem seeing fonts at 100% scaling on the 15" monitor.
      The extra resolution is a great productivity improvement, although most people who see my setup say it is too small for them.
      Maybe I have super eyes?

      --
      46137
    23. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by bored_engineer · · Score: 1
      Go to the macsales home page. Don't click through to the detail page that the image of the product links to, though. Go ahead, I'll wait.
      .
      .
      .
      .
      .
      .

      On the front page, and only on the front page is a picture that shows a little bridge joining one of the Mac's ports with the DEC. Every other picture that I've seen omits that little detail.

    24. Re: Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must be a Trump supporter. Your stupidity and inability to refute anything with logic or even a simple truth shines bright.

      TIL: some of you can read and write.

    25. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um sure...Apple can buy HP several times in cash....can you? If not STFU with your business advise....you are no one.

    26. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The trick is not BEING in business. The trick is STAYING in business.
      Seeing as Apple is the most successful business of all time....im not really sure where the idiots on /. get this need to offer advise to Apple.

      Get over it.....they are way more successful than you will ever be. There is no discussion. At this rate, they will be around much longer than you know....even if they stopped selling everything today....they have that kinda $$$ on hand.

      You can always tell who doesnt run a business of any size on /. by the stupidity of the commenters.

    27. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Tim Cook plays a role at Apple similar to former Monkey-in-Chief Ballmer at Microsoft: castrating it. Hard to see much wrong with that, if you don't have a one-button brain and prefer not to live in a one-button world.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    28. Re: Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Back to the girls took, you transsexual transgender thing.

    29. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      On a the image I saw previously, it showed a standard USB-C cable plugging into a port and going into the bottom of the unit. Apparently, that was just an early prototype. Good to know.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    30. Re: Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Want to buy my wife's sex tape?

      -Bill Clinton

    31. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by lgw · · Score: 2

      The trick is not BEING in business. The trick is STAYING in business.
      Seeing as Apple is the most successful business of all time..

      Standard Oil says hi - see you in 100 years and we'll talk.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    32. Re: Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HP went downhill after Marissa Meyer sold the ThinkPad lineup to the Chinese. What was she thinking?

    33. Re: Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hahahaha. You ARE a Trump supporter.

      Also you must have a thing for trans ladies since you bring it up all the time. Does your boyfriend know you voted for Trump?

    34. Re: Not news until his salary is $0 by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      Dude, I know Marissa Meyer is a shitty CEO but she was never at HP. Perhaps you meant Meg Whitman?

    35. Re: Not news until his salary is $0 by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      Wait, you said ThinkPad, that's IBM...

    36. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      Rather unsurprisingly both Ballmer and Cook came from the financial side of the company. When you put bean counters in charge, that's what happens.

    37. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by knorthern+knight · · Score: 1

      > The trick is not BEING in business. The trick is STAYING in business.

      It also helps to have Microsoft bail you out when you're facing bankruptcy...

      http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/micro...

      > The 1997 deal came within weeks of Apple facing bankruptcy and was announced
      > as part of a broad patent cross-licensing agreement and a promise from
      > Microsoft to provide its Office software to Macs in exchange for Internet Explorer
      > being the default browser on Apple's machines. In reality, it was a move to make
      > Microsoft look competitive and not be penalised for monopolising the market.

      Like the article said, the only reason MS saved Apple in 1997 was to avoid officially being pronounced a monopoly.

      --

      I'm not repeating myself
      I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
    38. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure if Tim Cook is the one driving all the thinness, he seems to be more of a guy who just looks at the numbers (given his background in supply chain management). I suspect it's Jony Ive that's been pushing for all the thinness lately.

      No matter who is pushing thinness in Apple's devices, Tim Cook is the CEO. He's the one who makes final decisions on major questions like looks vs. usability.

    39. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by myid · · Score: 1

      Try explaining any of this to Apple fanatics. Every time I bring any of these issues up I'm immediately labeled a troll because some guy who edits 4K video professionally loves his new MacBook Pro.

      I'm a Mac user, and I don't know any Mac fanatics who defend everything that Apple does.

      And Mac-related publications don't give Apple a free pass. For example, here's a Macworld article by a senior contributor, that calls for bigger batteries in Apple laptops, even if bigger batteries mean thicker laptops.

      Hey Apple, it's time to give up thinness for a bigger battery ...
      If Apple insists on making its devices thinner and lighter, there simply won’t be enough room for batteries that last all day in real-world situations. ...
      Thinness or more battery? I’ll take more battery.

    40. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It has to have a nice internal display. That way, people can kind of halfway see things when you're forced to give a presentation on the internal screen because the projector is HDMI and you don't have the right dongle....

    41. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here's to hoping your mother gets gang raped and killed by a group of niglet apes.

    42. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not saying much when all you've seen are Macs.

      I laugh at the pathetic, tiny, low resolution displays and shit specs on all Macbooks.

    43. Re: Not news until his salary is $0 by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      He means Carly Fiorina.

    44. Re: Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. Can't say that I do.

    45. Re: Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was seriously thinking of making the switch to a MacBook pro laptop from windows and Apple totally ignored all the other users like me. Huge opportunity missed. The iPhone 7 is shit. Give us a thicker phone with 2 days battery life!

    46. Re:Not news until his salary is $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      in order to drive their 17" 4K monitor. Apple needs to do the same.

      Apple instead put in a much improved screen that uses less power. Why doesn't HP do that instead? Can't innovate?

  3. it's a start by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    But he really just needs to be fired.

    1. Re:it's a start by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For one bad year? That is a bit overkill.

      Or for just not being Steve Jobs?

      Anyway, having an off year is ok, it is how they recover from it.

  4. But why? by jandersen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The question that never seems to get asked is: Why do these executives get these incredible salaries? Does anybody - apart from the tiny elite at the top - really think it is good value for money?

    1. Re:But why? by CajunArson · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What's so "incredible" about a $9 million salary for the CEO of one of the most valuable companies anywhere?

      It's downright pedestrian compared to what many sports players get to throw a ball or make tackles, and it comes with a massively higher responsibility to boot.

      --
      AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
    2. Re:But why? by mongothesecond · · Score: 1

      Investors and board members are setting the salaries for the people trusted with a multi billion dollar company. Doesnt it logically follow that pay follows trust and responsibility?

    3. Re:But why? by DickBreath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While I'm no fan of the R's, not even a little bit, it's not just the R's that are the problem. The D's also want to keep the poor people in their place. Why do you think the D's candidate didn't win? If you think either party is going to help you, then you already have the strong delusion.

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    4. Re:But why? by The-Ixian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They are the person where the "buck stops". Apple has a bad year? Blame the person at the top. Apple had a great year? Praise the person at the top.

      That's a lot of pressure. I think I would pass on 9 million/year for that kind of responsibility. I live ok. I don't have access to all the toys, but I am relatively happy with what I got.

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    5. Re:But why? by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 0

      why do you think the D's want to keep the poor in their place?

      I'm not sure I see that. the rich want to stay rich, no matter what letter they have, but there is no central principle in the D belief system that the poor should always stay poor. that just isn't true at all.

      the D's have many problems, but hatred of the poor is NOT one of them. they could do a lot more to help the social situation, but at least they're not fundamentally opposed to it like the R's are.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    6. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This. You're paid what you're worth. If you are worth less than you're paid, you will be removed eventually. If you're worth more than you're paid, you lose job satisfaction and move on.

      Very few people can compete in professional sports at an elite level. Those sports are a product that people are willing to pay to watch. Hence, those athletes are paid what they are worth.

      There are more--but still relatively few in the grand scheme of things--people able to head companies with several billions of dollars in annual revenues. Hence, those individuals too are paid what they are worth.

      Practically anyone can work a fast food job, yet the bleeding hearts seem to think they deserve pay similar to what EMTs and teachers are paid in several areas of the country. Minimal skills = minimum compensation. Excessive supply and minimal demand makes for a buyer's market.

    7. Re:But why? by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 0, Troll

      there was a time, more than 20 years ago, when slash was very liberal.

      now, we're invaded by the conservatives and any post that tried to further the progressive belief system gets modded down.

      what a shame that we have been infiltrated like this. as a technology-based and focused site, we historically were open minded THINKERS, here.

      shame that we got invaded by the faux news crowd. ;(

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    8. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Why isn't the worker assembling the phones also as valuable? Because he didn't design the phone? Neither did Cook. So where does this "value" come from?

      Simple: there is no value. It's simply human theater with personalities and egos rewarding each other for having manipulated and lied their way into a position to receive that kind of money.

    9. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "progressive belief system"
      You just nailed it. It is a BELIEF SYSTEM, just like Religion. It isn't reality. Grow up.

    10. Re:But why? by sheramil · · Score: 0

      This. You're paid what you're worth. If you are worth less than you're paid, you will be removed eventually. If you're worth more than you're paid, you lose job satisfaction and move on.

      Can you really see Tim Cook - for that matter, can you really see anyone on Earth - saying "huh, my income is down to eight and half million. That's not enough. I quit."?

    11. Re: But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If anything the D's biggest problem this past election cycle is they are unwilling to tell the really big lies. Like, D's aren't willing to promise that all the manufacturing and buggy whip jobs are coming back, because obviously they can't. Technology is making those jobs go away and people need to adapt as best they can. For those who can't adapt, we need strong social safety nets in the form of unemployment welfare or basic income.

      Republitards want to gut all the social safety systems while making false promises about all the coal mining and assembly line jobs they are going to bring back.

      Funny how people are more willing to work as wage slaves in shitty jobs that destroy the environment than they are willing to just accept a little help from the government.

    12. Re:But why? by wicka_wicka · · Score: 1

      Yes, because they don't care about money in the way you think they do. All they care about is if the stock price is going up. That's literally it. If you have a CEO who can consistently increase the stock price, they're golden. If anything I think this salary cut (which is, let's be honest, probably meaningless to Cook) is an attempt to placate shareholders who see them missing their revenue targets.

      --
      hi
    13. Re: But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      One problem is that executives really be getting paid through equity. That is, they earn money when the value of the company increases. I believe there are a lot of people who could run Apple as well or better than Tim Cook. Steve Jobs was unique in his ability to transform and grow Apple, but Cook seems very pedestrian. The employees who should be paid the most are those who add the most value to the company through things like innovation and engineering great products. Those are your most valuable emoloyees. That's usually not the CEO, but the CEO has the ability to create an environment conducive to those things. When a CEO has employees who adds value to the company, and gives the employees the best chance to do their jobs, the value of the company increases, and the CEO gets paid through equity. It's actually a bad business idea for a CEO to get paid so much, and yet it's so common.

    14. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      why do you think the D's want to keep the poor in their place?

      So they keep voting D.

    15. Re:But why? by Notabadguy · · Score: 1

      If I had a mod point, I'd have modded you down. When I make a conservative point, it gets modded down.

      Like you said,l this is a technology-based and focused site. Leave politics at the door please. Save that for your fake news of choice platform.

    16. Re:But why? by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 2

      The question that never seems to get asked is: Why do these executives get these incredible salaries? Does anybody - apart from the tiny elite at the top - really think it is good value for money?

      The question that never seems to get asked: What business is it of yours what some else at a private company gets paid? Apparently, the board of directors think it is good value for the money. If they didn't, the board of directors and stockholders will get rid of them and hire someone else. I'm not a Tim Cook fan, and I think he's made several bad decisions, but I'm not a stockholder--or a busybody either.

      --
      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    17. Re:But why? by NatasRevol · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Don't athletes do that all the time?

      Team A won't pay me enough, so I quit to go work for Team B at +$1M?

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    18. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A subtle distinction, but you're paid what you're worth to the person paying you.

    19. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is less than many CEOs make of much smaller companys. The CEO of my company which is 1/20th the size makes 11 million a year in compensation with much lower revenue and profits that are no where near apples.

    20. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had this discussion within someone recently and this is what I came up with. I am not sure I buy it but it makes some sense.

      The CEO is "the boss". The guy at the top. They guy that gets the blame for everything from Susan's lawsuit to Billy destroying the data center. It is his responsibility. He is accountable to the board, to the shareholders, to the press, to the public and to the employees who trust that his leadership will guide the company forward. He is, "the man" (and yes it could be a woman).

      If you look at it comparatively for everything he is responsible for it is not unrealistic. Consider GE. They employ ~ 150,000 people. That is 150,000 families that rely on GE and ultimately the CEO to make sure they get paid, can take sally to soccer practice, provide paid vacation and decent health benefits. The CEO of GE makes 3.8 million as a salary (plus stock which cranks it up a lot but that is a different discussion). That means he makes 25.00 per employee, per year. That isn't all that unreasonable considering the amount of responsibility he has.

    21. Re:But why? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      The question that never seems to get asked is: Why do these executives get these incredible salaries? Does anybody - apart from the tiny elite at the top - really think it is good value for money?

      It's obvious to most people. If you have to pay $2M more to get an exec who's better than the other guy enough to net your company an additional $2B in profit, there's not even a question on the table - you'd be crazy not to.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    22. Re:But why? by sir-gold · · Score: 1

      The money they pay those high-priced exec doesn't come out of thin air, it comes directly out of our pockets, in the form of higher prices and lower wages.

    23. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This is why I like companies which are still largely owned by founding families. What they think about is are will going to be around in next the 100 years. They have the long term view and not focused on quarterly results.

    24. Re:But why? by sir-gold · · Score: 2

      If he is responsible, then why doesn't he get punished when things go wrong?

      If they had taken ALL of his compensation, it would have almost covered the whole amount the lost.

      Instead they RAISED his salary.

    25. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      hey, Moron, Tim Cook isn't a republican and he is gay, so 'Big Religion" certainly doesn't like him.

      Maybe you should stay on topic?

    26. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      why do you think the D's want to keep the poor in their place?

      I think Scrooge from Mikey's Christmas Carol puts it nicely:

      Scrooge: Oh. Aha. Well um, you realize if you give money to the poor, they won't be poor anymore, will they?
      Collector for the Poor #2: Well, I...
      Scrooge: And if they're not *poor* anymore, then you won't have to raise money for them anymore.
      Collector for the Poor #1: Well, I suppose...
      Scrooge: And if you don't have to raise money for them anymore, then you'd be out of a job. Oh please, gentlemen, don't ask me to put you out of a job. Not on Christmas Eve.

      The fact is (and, FTR, I'm an Independent), the D's get a lot of power and money from claiming to want to fix these issues. So, if these issues ever actually get fixed, then guess what goes away....the hammer they get to beat Republicans with. So, they do great Kabuki Theater of fundraising on claims of wanting to fix all these things, and then when they don't get fixed, they can blame Republicans for being the obstructionists and hating the poor and sick and women and homosexuals and everybody else they need to get money from.

    27. Re:But why? by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      That doesn't logically follow in all cases. Majority stockholders are often represented by people of the same cabal, such as board members of large pension funds. Same for renumeration boards, which should be independent but often have members who are CEOs of other companies. Independent, sure, but certainly not unbiased. Sometimes it seems like there's a race to the top; if a company is making money you can ask for a ridiculous portion of those profits if you're the CEO, after all "you'll still be worth it" even if it seems a little on the high side. If Cook gets $10M, why not $100M? Still a good bargain if Apple is making billions, right? I can understand companies want to pay top dollar for outstanding CEOs, but it seems like salaries of all CEOs are going up, even for the average ones or even for the clusterfucks. And the clusterfucks keep getting hired, too.

      It's not always easy to tell how much of an individual contribution to the bottom line a CEO has made either. It's clear that the CEO potentially has a large impact but that doesn't necessarily make it so in all cases; even if the company did well, the CEO's actions might not have had mich of an impact, or might even have detracted from potentially even higher profits. In the end, what should determine the relative worth of a CEO is not the company's profits per se, nor his actual contribution to them, but how much he has done better compared to an average CEO.

      At least, that is what I would expect as a shareholder. And I would like to ask: what kind of CEO would we get if we offered $1M instead of $10M?

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    28. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      L0s3r.

    29. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      when I worked for GTE, the CEO was paid $32 million +. Under him the company went out of business and died. Every year while that process happened, the Board voted him raises and bonuses. Some of his decisions (this was 22 years ago) were to spin off Sylvania into its own company and have it no longer be part of GTE. Another was to sell off the telephone book publisher that was owned by GTE. These two businesses, at the time, were VERY PROFITABLE. but the management mantra those days was to get rid of things 'outside your core strengths' so even though these were cash cows the company could have used, the Board decided that those two decisions were GREAT decisions.

      2 years later GTE was splitting itself up and selling off other business units, shuttering doors and laying off thousands, 8 years later, no part of GTE existed anymore.

    30. Re:But why? by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 1

      The money they pay those high-priced exec doesn't come out of thin air, it comes directly out of our pockets, in the form of higher prices

      So you really think Apple bases their prices on how much they are paying their executives? Guess again.

      and lower wages.

      There is no pie. Someone making more money doesn't automatically mean someone else is making less.

      --
      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    31. Re:But why? by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The question that never seems to get asked is: Why do these executives get these incredible salaries? Does anybody - apart from the tiny elite at the top - really think it is good value for money?

      That's not really the question. Steve Jobs was demonstrably worth hundreds of billions of dollars to Apple's shareholders.

      The real question is "why do these executives continue to get incredible salaries when they demonstrably do nothing for the company?"

      The issue is that they're being paid as if they're founders when, in fact, they're simply running a ship that someone else built and set out to sea. It's not the same job and nowhere near as difficult. Jobs took a company that was nearly bankrupt and turned it into the world's most valuable company. Unless Cook seriously steps up his game he either needs to be paid $100K/year for the job he's doing or replaced. If he's not replaced soon, Apple will likely be irreparably harmed.

    32. Re:But why? by Jfetjunky · · Score: 1

      I've thought about this a lot. I waver between a few thoughts.

      Capitalistic arrogance: After gaining enough success, these people begin to believe they are largely responsible for the success of such a large organization. Much like celebrities mistakenly begin to believe they are the pillars of the society just because they look good on tv. This especially feels true when lower employees are getting the boot and the CEO is getting a bonus.

      or maybe

      Because they can. The CEO's salary distributed among the rest of the people in a gigantic company usually adds up to a value most people wouldn't miss over the course of a year.

    33. Re:But why? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      there was a time, more than 20 years ago, when slash was very liberal.

      now, we're invaded by the conservatives and any post that tried to further the progressive belief system gets modded down.

      what a shame that we have been infiltrated like this. as a technology-based and focused site, we historically were open minded THINKERS, here.

      shame that we got invaded by the faux news crowd. ;(

      “If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.”
            - W. Churchill

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    34. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stock options. He sold 36million worth last summer. He has the potential of receiving more than 7 million shares.

      I'm glad his pay has been cut. Just look at the mac mini. It's a disgrace when you compare it to an Intel NUC. Jobs was all about expanding sales and entering new markets. Cook? Crickets chirping.

    35. Re:But why? by tsqr · · Score: 2

      The money they pay those high-priced exec doesn't come out of thin air, it comes directly out of our pockets, in the form of higher prices and lower wages.

      OK, what would happen if Cook was paid $0 per year and the money spread among the employees in the form of pay increases? Apple directly employs 66,000 people in the US. Dividing Cook's $8.75 million annual pay among them would increase their pay by a whopping $2.54 per week; more than enough for a venti Starbucks coffee. The non-US employees will have to continue getting by on their current wages.

      Well, maybe we should use that money to decrease the price of iPhones instead. Apple sold about 212 million iPhones in 2016, so they could drop the price by $0.04.

    36. Re:But why? by imgod2u · · Score: 1

      Apple didn't exactly make 0 money that year. They made less than expected, his total comp got reduced (by about ~1M, or 10%).

      If their revenues dropped by 10%, he'd probably be out on his ass.

    37. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great point, but people like TheGratefulNet are too far gone to grow up. They'll exist in their progressive echo chamber with that smug "I know everything you idiot!" superiority attitude even as their "belief system" becomes irrelevant. We NEED counterbalance to conservative ideas though. Maybe classical liberalism will make a comeback to fill in the void left by the dying progressive movement.

    38. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A subtle distinction, but you're paid what you're worth to the person paying you.

      FIFY: You're paid as little as the person paying you can get with paying you.

    39. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL the buck stops here. Oh well I guess I'll only get 8Mil this year. If I do shit again maybe I'll only get 7Mil. What a hard life...

    40. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There is no pie. Someone making more money doesn't automatically mean someone else is making less.

      Excellent. Time for that $15 minimum wage! No, wait..lets bump that up to $35 since no one is making less money as a result.

      The question that never seems to get asked: What business is it of yours what some else at a private company gets paid?

      Right! So when Trump makes millions off of his private company that just so happens to get public contracts, that is none of your business.

    41. Re: But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All the ownership guys - those with 25mil plus equity stakes - sit on each other's boards of directors. And they all vote for each other to get huge payday after huge payday. It's one big circle jerk

    42. Re: But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whom himself, was a very rich man.

    43. Re: But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah it's actually refreshing that he ONLY makes about ten million a year

    44. Re: But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just bad with finances.

    45. Re:But why? by sir-gold · · Score: 1

      I wasn't referring to just Tim Cook, I was referring to every top-executive at every company who also receives non-salary compensation.

      If all of Apple's suppliers dropped their prices (by cutting executive salaries) it would drop the cost more. And if the supermarket chains, utility companies, gas companies, etc did the same, you money would go further.

      High executive salaries (and stock dividends, aka 'paying rich people simply for being rich') are the vampires sucking the money out of the economy, and increasing income inequality.

    46. Re: But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't you feel good knowing he is now somewhere else making that kind of money?

      I blame shareholders as much as I do the CEO. They pretty much consigned everything he did.

    47. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Corporate boards are there to serve shareholder interest, not employee interest (although the two can overlap significantly in a healthy company.)

      If the shareholders were raking in profits as the business was being sold part and parcel then the CEO was worth all of that compensation to the board and shareholders. If not, then the shareholders should have elected a different board & CEO or filed a lawsuit challenging the fiduciary responsibility of the CEO and the board.

    48. Re:But why? by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      The question that never seems to get asked is: Why do these executives get these incredible salaries? Does anybody - apart from the tiny elite at the top - really think it is good value for money?

      Well, it Tim Cook's case, IIRC, he was the supply chain master for Apple. He was the one that worked out all the deals so that the original iPhones had all the parts they needed while other companies trying to mimic it had to deal with non-ideal parts because he had tied up all production of the ideal parts. He worked on the vertical integration for Apple and, while not all that showy, no doubt made lots of money for Apple. He is presumably still doing this.

    49. Re:But why? by sir-gold · · Score: 1

      The pie is the total revenue of Apple (specifically, $215.6 billion) so every penny that Tim Cook and the other executives get is a penny that didn't go to the people actually doing the work. Yes, I realize it would only be a difference of a few cents per employee, but it's still unfair for one person to make more in one day (day after day) than most people make in a year.

    50. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A CEO who rode the success of Steve Jobs to become one of the most valuable companies anywhere.
      A CEO who just happened to be in the right place at the right time to take the helm.

      What have they done since Jobs departure other than just maintain things that is deserving of a multi-million dollar salary exactly ?

      I can sit in the same damn seat, do nothing, and accomplish exactly the same thing under the same circumstances.
      It's all about who you know, and being in the right spot when the time is right.

      I think most of them should be fired for their decisions on the Mac Book Pro. Instead, in their failure, they're ' rewarded ' with a salary
      that is still hundreds of times greater than any of us will ever see.

    51. Re: But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I say we call up Woz and see if he wants the job. Give him a shot. Hey, it worked once when they brung back Steve, it's worth another shot.

    52. Re:But why? by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      a million dollar question!

    53. Re:But why? by erapert · · Score: 2

      Watch Milton Freidman's Freedom to Choose and/or read or watch anything by Thomas Sowell. They do a very good job of outlining the ways in which progressives/liberals/democrats have set up a system to "keep the poor down". That is not to say that they agree with Republican policies, though.

      tl;dr of libertarian and free market capitalist thought: If you're waiting on someone else to give you money it won't happen without strings attached (vote for me or else) and almost always ends in things not going as you wanted them to. If you stand up on your hind legs and make a way for yourself then at least you'll be free.

    54. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The problem with seeing it as D v R is that 90% of politicians essentially don't care about the poor. Nor do they give a shit about the constitution, civil rights, healthcare, corruption, or anything other than holding power and making money for themselves. Of the 10% that do care, 98% of them are Democrats.

      That may make you think that Democrats care as a whole, but they most certainly don't. Look at what happened during the two Obama years they had power. Virtually nothing. Look what they did to Bernie Sanders.

      Just because the Republicans are the "bad guys" doesn't by any means make the Democrats the "good guys".

    55. Re:But why? by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      While I'm no fan of the R's, not even a little bit, it's not just the R's that are the problem. The D's also want to keep the poor people in their place. Why do you think the D's candidate didn't win? If you think either party is going to help you, then you already have the strong delusion.

      While I won't argue too strong, the main trouble seems to be that the Ds told the unskilled white workers the truth ( "Those jobs aren't coming back.") against the R's willingness to tell the people what they want ("I'll bring those jobs back to America."). Same thing happened to get Bush the Elder his job as President ("Read my lips; no new taxes." when new taxes came anyway). Truth is, if those jobs come back (and it wasn't a net loss for the US economically), automation or relocating in the US to the large coastal cities and not the mid-west is what will probably happen. Any real answer to the factory workers of the rust belt probably wouldn't resonate with them, that the new economy needs skilled workers in highly concentrated pools, so you can either get an education and move to the large cities, or ask for a government work program with expensive labor costs to make jobs. Instead, they bought into the job creator myth that if companies were to have to pay less taxes and make more profits, they'll create more jobs. Personally, I think that if there was any money being left on the table, the companies would get the loans to collect it already. Lower taxes may make some fields profitable, but I doubt there is that much to take advantage of. Anyway, we have a new R president and there is nothing to do but see if he can actually produce on his promises.

    56. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jobs took a company that was nearly bankrupt and turned it into the world's most valuable company.

      Do you truly, in the deepest of your heart, believe that he accomplished that alone?

    57. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The American Dream never had anything to do with being ultra rich, or even rich for that matter.
      I have a wife and four kids, a full-time job (EXACTLY 40 hrs a week--no more, no less), two vehicles, and no debt but the $30K left on my five bedroom house.
      According to the state we're income eligible for food stamps, but we have enough for our needs and some wants. I'm living the American Dream on an alleged poverty income.

    58. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Like Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago..

    59. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is that a lot of dems that aren't politicians didn't support the good guys this time around and I hope learned their lesson. I have no beef with anyone who voted in the last election regardless of who they voted for. The people who abstained from voting should be ashamed of themselves. That is the great American tragedy and I'm hoping four years of Trump isn't going to leave us as the Simpsons predicted 20 years ago. Given his current policy proposals it is a good bet the prediction is accurate though.

      Of course to give him some credit, at least he didn't do what GW jr did. He cut taxes and dramatically increased spending. At least so far Trump has a lot of proposals to cut spending even if they are in weird places. The problem is that he also wants a trillion dollar infrastructure bill which will do squat if we allow people to use those funds to buy Chinese steel instead of American; or Chinese solar panels instead of American.

    60. Re: But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like, D's aren't willing to promise that all the manufacturing and buggy whip jobs are coming back, because obviously they can't. Technology is making those jobs go away and people need to adapt as best they can.

      Manufacturing is still happening. It's not all robots building robots building robots building widgets.
      The manufacturing jobs just moved to where labor and environmental regulations are more favorable to the bottom line.
      Technology's not making those jobs go away; governments are.

    61. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe CEOs shouldn't be paid at all and rather just "taken care of". They expense their lifestyle expenses the same way they would have to justify a business need and the company covers it all. I think this is why the Presidents "salary" is not that unreasonable compared to athletes and tech companies. A million a year + expenses seems like a fair ceiling to me.

    62. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is a political story. There is no tech angle on discussing a CEO's compensation.

    63. Re:But why? by fbobraga · · Score: 0

      What a shitload of BS...

    64. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except in professional sports with enforced salary caps - a fringe case where Americans are against capitalism.

    65. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Look at the main consumers of fake news. Hint, the progressive echo chamber isn't nearly as loud as the fake conservative one. To be conservative is to argue that the status quo is sufficient which is why no one is 100% conservative, no one believes the world is perfect on either side of the political spectrum. Liberals are more willing to try things which can absolutely lead to making problems worse which is why all proposals should be debated with honest and genuine vigor. Change for the sake of change isn't good. Fake conservatives want us to revert to policies that failed in the past. The idea of trickle down economics never made any logical sense since it presupposes that businesses only hire employees because they have the money to rather than the need to.

      If the information age began in the 90s then I say we need a good information age to begin now. An age where data quality improves. There is so much bad information all over the Internet that it drowns out the good info that made it so useful.

      Look at half of the crap that Trump spouts then turns around the following week and says I didn't say that. Look at all the crazy conspiracies that even our future top cabinet positions believe.

      The progressive movement isn't dying at all. Hurding democrats for the last 40 years is like trying to hurd cats. They go every which way and it is their biggest weakness. Republican strength has always been through unity. Since they mostly all work towards the same party platform they are thus far more successful at the cost of what's best for the country. The biggest problem with Obamacare for instance is that it didn't address the cost of healthcare. They tried to but the public option was struck from the agreement due to Republican obstructionism and several democrats not being onboard. Universal healthcare is the only way to get the costs of healthcare under control. When Republicans I'm sure successfully repeal Obamacare you can bet they won't replace it with anything which will leave millions no longer insured and again going to emergency rooms where they can't pay again driving up the cost of healthcare. This is why premiums were already rising before Obamacare and why hospitals were closing emergency rooms.

    66. Re:But why? by aicrules · · Score: 1

      Then you don't understand how public assistance works. The more the government can get you to rely on their services rather than figuring it out for yourself, the more you will continue to be reliant on their services and not try to figure out anything for yourself. Democrats LOVE social services galore because it keeps people in "their place". If you think it's because they are altruistic in their motives, you are sorely mistaken.

    67. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tim Cook is very rich so Big Religion certainly does like him very much. Big Religion doesn't care about anyone being gay. All the almighty dollar is the real deity these days.

    68. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Investors and board members are setting the salaries for the people trusted with a multi billion dollar company. Doesnt it logically follow that pay follows trust and responsibility?

      Um.. no. Board Members are setting the salaries. The investor who owns 0.01% of the company's stock really has no say, and even then are always encouraged to vote whatever the board recommends.
      Who are these board members? Why CEOs, CFO, and ex-C level executives from other companies, of course.

    69. Re:But why? by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 1

      Jobs took a company that was nearly bankrupt and turned it into the world's most valuable company.

      Do you truly, in the deepest of your heart, believe that he accomplished that alone?

      Of course not. What kind of stupid question is that?

      He was a leader. As such his main work was motivating others to accomplish the goals that he and his helpers set out. That's not an easy job and there's a reason that you don't see much of it. Elon Musk probably operates on the same level, Bill Gates also. There's a reason you know these names.

      Apple has done nothing since Jobs died. Literally, they have coasted. I could grab the local McDonald's manager and put him in Tim Cook's place and get - at worst - the same result.

      The sad thing is that he's screwed up stuff that didn't need screwed up. How hard would it have been to simply do standard upgrades to the MacBook Pro line, for instance? They had years, and the best they could do is remove the top row of keys and most usable external ports. They didn't even upgrade the memory capacity - still stuck at 16GB. I had 16GB in my MBP from a few years ago. Come on.

      It's frustrating to see what's happened to the company. I personally could have done a much better job of running it (yes, I'm going there) than Tim Cook. At this point, most products have been damaged (no headphone jack, no usb ports, etc.) with little in return. Worse yet, they believe this damage is somehow better - that progress is being made. They seemingly don't understand the concept of a synergistic ecosystem. Hell, even Microsoft is starting to figure this out.

      I have no trouble with the fact that they haven't really rolled out another iPhone-sized project since Jobs died. Those sorts of things come around once in a generation and I don't expect such. But you'd think they could have at least maintained standard upgrade paths for the existing products. They've failed to even do that simple task.

      When the stock crashes, it ain't gonna be pretty.

    70. Re:But why? by guises · · Score: 1

      The D's also want to keep the poor people in their place. Why do you think the D's candidate didn't win?

      What do these things have to do with one another? I'm not following you.

    71. Re:But why? by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Because Team A doesn't value him properly, based on income.

      Tim Cook has only led the most successful company ever. For just salary (not stock), he could probably get paid 10x more to go to just about any other company.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    72. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody is worth that much. It may be necessary in the competition for top executives between big companies, but this is the kind of bullshit that's responsible for inequalities (I hear they are growing bigger).

      Whether this is a "good investment" for the company is not relevant. It's absurd.

    73. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Practically anyone can work a fast food job, yet the bleeding hearts seem to think they deserve pay similar to what EMTs and teachers are paid in several areas of the country.

      It's called "apples and oranges". One would reasonably expect that a fast food worker in California may be paid $15/hour while in Indiana an EMT would be paid $15/hour (closer to $14.45/hour, actually). At the same time, one would expect an EMT in California to be paid closer to $20-$30/hour. The fundamental problem is that cost of living goes up yearly due to inflation and cost of living is different on where you live, not only in the State you live in but also the area in that State.

      The real issue is that EMTs in California are only paid ~$16-$18/hour. Instead of addressing that issue and then increasing fast food workers salaries, we hear people like you who speak of "bleeding hearts" who merely want cost of living increases and wages based upon living costs. There's a reason they're called "cost[s] of living". It's precisely because people aren't seeing wage increases across the board that we see so many government handouts where otherwise people would either (1) be able to direct afford their food, shelter, etc or (2) would turn to family and depend on them.

      There's a reason it's called "not a hand out but a hand up". It's also why we set a "minimum compensation" limit and should readily increase it. Because if we want to see EMTs paid more, we have to first make the people below them in wage have wage increases. And then EMTs can choose to either flip burgers or take on the harder skill EMT job. At which point EMT salaries will HAVE to increase to lure in enough hires, although undoubtedly not to the same raw number difference in the past--and buying power from inflation will make it worse.

      You want to fundamentally change this? Change the system that strives for a constant, small inflation. And then suffer the consequences of the wealthy 1% who own 50% of the wealth who suddenly have zero reason to risk most of that wealth in anything but the most solid of investments. Otherwise, accept that inflation applies to everyone and especially on the low end (read, most everyone, that the effective buying power of people beyond cost of living will always decrease*.

      * Things like short-term rapid expansion of certain technologies (fossil fuels, automation, computers) can invert that for a time, but they eventually become the expected norm and are compensated for in future pricing.

    74. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      .... Assuming perfect information and an efficient system and that pay is the only consideration. Are those assumptions true, very often?

    75. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Corporate boards are there to serve shareholder interest

      Oh not that old rumor. Sigh.

      They are there to serve the interests of the company - and obey the law. If a shareholder says to a board member "come and suck me off", the board member is under no obligation to do it, even though it would serve the interests of the shareholder.

      The shareholders may vote in a different board, but that's a normal power relationship to be managed.

      And ... the board absolutely must respect employee interests, at least as far as they are protected by law and contracts.

    76. Re:But why? by irrational_design · · Score: 1

      It has to do with how much it costs to replace them. Fast food workers are paid little since they can be replaced with anyone off the street. Despite what us plebes might think, the same doesn't hold true for people at the CEO level. Thus their outrageous salaries.

    77. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tim Cook could leave and people would still buy Apple products. In fact, Apple would be better of for it.

      Lebron James leaves and Cleveland Cavaliers ticket sales and television views plummet.

    78. Re: But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. A voluntary caste based system which leaves its bearer into perpetual servitude. What's what the political elite want; and the grand majority of them have aligned themselves with progressive ideologies like socialism and globalism.

    79. Re:But why? by Powercntrl · · Score: 1

      While I won't argue too strong, the main trouble seems to be that the Ds told the unskilled white workers the truth ( "Those jobs aren't coming back.") against the R's willingness to tell the people what they want ("I'll bring those jobs back to America.").

      Yup, I was at a Clinton rally and her message was largely "We're going to make it easier to succeed - if you're willing to put in the effort." While you'd think that would resonate well with the "God helps those who help themselves" crowd, the reality is, they'd rather bury their heads in the sand and pretend their hours of labor are worth more than those of workers in China. Unless of course, you're a fast food worker, in which case you don't deserve a livable wage.

      American exceptionalism - it's dog eat dog, all the way down.

      --

      ---
      DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
    80. Re: But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see you're under the delusion that politicians care about something besides their cushy jobs. How...quaint

    81. Re:But why? by MachineShedFred · · Score: 2

      Strange, I've been around Slashdot since ~2000, and it's never been a particularly "progressive" believe "system" or liberal. Nor has it been conservative. It's been libertarian - the classic Slashdot poster cares more about individual freedoms and respect of personal privacy than they care about either conservative or liberal politicking.

      It goes hand-in-hand with the open source movement.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    82. Re:But why? by fropenn · · Score: 2

      The goal is not to 'raise money to give money to the poor until they are no longer poor.' Rather, the goal is to create a society where people don't have suffer poverty - which is about high-quality, affordable education for all, accessible and affordable health care that doesn't bankrupt you when you get sick, an equitable society where all persons have opportunities regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or other minority status, and so on. R's and D's disagree substantially on many of the best strategies for these issues (take, affordable care act, for example).

    83. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple's image took a huge negative hit and Cook and his poor decision making is the primary cause of it. He should have been let go.

    84. Re: But why? by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      some, even few, do (don't generalize about...)

    85. Re:But why? by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      Maintaining in an industry that basically reinvents itself every 24 months isn't that bad, actually.

      Even Steve Jobs had his stinker products that everyone seems to forget. Power Mac G4 Cube? iPod Hi Fi? Ping?

      Given that the product lineup isn't very strong right now, and they're still making mounds of cash, I'd say he's doing alright. If the product line remains weak in comparison to the competition, then there probably needs to be a conversation about why. But, being that people have been saying that since before Steve's body was even cold, there might be a bit of bias out there.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    86. Re: But why? by coteriescavenger · · Score: 1

      Does anybody - apart from the tiny elite at the top - really think it is good value for money?

      Yes. A company is made or broken by its management, and their responsibility is enormous, especially in a company as integral to society as Apple. It's worth every penny to get people at the top who know what they're doing.

      Can you get by paying them less? No. Their salary isn't determined arbitrarily, but by the free market. If you arbitrarily limit the income of your leaders, the good leaders naturally migrate elsewhere.

    87. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The question that never seems to get asked is: Why do these executives get these incredible salaries? Does anybody - apart from the tiny elite at the top - really think it is good value for money?

      It's obvious to most people. If you have to pay $2M more to get an exec who's better than the other guy enough to net your company an additional $2B in profit, there's not even a question on the table - you'd be crazy not to.

      But the CEOs who don't succeed? HP's stock, for example, jumped 7% when it was announced that Fiorina was being kicked out.
      Under Mayer, Yahoo! Bought! Tumblr! and watched its value tumble $230M. In March 2016 Fortune named her as one of the world's most disappointing leaders, and yet STILL she gets to keep running Yahoo! into! liquidation! And she'd get a $55M bonus for failure if fired within a year of Yahoo's takeover.
      It's an oligarchy, I tell you.

    88. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you're like the majority of American voters the Ds didn't say that at all. The majority of people have any inkling of selecting a candidate without heavy reservations for party are fed a lot of repeated information via commercial. I don't know where you are but as someone who lives in a swing state that Hillary lost by the hairs on her chin the messages were actually pretty stark; Trump advertised little but held more rallies. His TV spots were largely "make America great again." Hillary held fewer rallies and had less attendance. He TV spots were about 80% "Hate Trump*" and 20% "I love children." If I were a fence sitter (I voted Gary Johnson) the whole "Hate Trump" thing would have been a big red flag. Regardless of party most people want a message of hope from an up and comer. Hillary didn't deliver. Hillary didn't exactly ignore the area either but the momentum was easy to spot from a distance. Even in the cities Trump pulled more people to rallies although he didn't pull a lot of voted in those districts. Hillary went as far as to pay high end entertainers to try to rope more people into her rallies and it still sputtered and, ultimately, failed.

      *If you haven't seen the "Hate Trump" ads they are exactly that. Bought and paid for by Hillary but they never mentioned her name except in the small print and a 3 second sound bite at the end of the ad. It was very reminiscent of Orwell's Two Minute Hate from 1984. I'm not saying the guy isn't a slime but I didn't hold Hillary in much better light and her campaign "efforts" even took me to view her in a dimmer light.

    89. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think most of them should be fired for their decisions on the Mac Book Pro. Instead, in their failure, they're ' rewarded ' with a salary
      that is still hundreds of times greater than any of us will ever see.

      While I agree with you, there's the fairly persuasive argument that those shitty MBP's are selling like hotcakes, and therefore Apple's leadership did exactly the right thing. When they're pulling in near-record profits, who can argue that they've even remotely failed in their jobs?

      Apple continues to focus more and more on the mindless consumer, to the great detriment of the power users they used to care about. Looking purely at the dollar signs, that was exactly the right thing to do. Fucking sucks for anyone with a brain who used to like their products.

      Totally agree, though, that riding the success of Jobs wasn't a hard thing to do. The biggest value that Tim Cook brings that I couldn't is squeezing the supply chain so tightly to raise profits even beyond the obscene level. I'd let the engineering/marketing teams do what they do best, and be happy with "comfortable" profits. Tim Cook has pushed that to new heights with his operations expertise, which is way outside my skillset.

    90. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny how if you don't march in lock-step with the "progressive belief system" you're suddenly not an "open minded THINKER" and you get your news of the world from "faux."

      If you don't see the irony in your own statement then you must be seriously drunk on the Kool-Aide and should seek professional help.

    91. Re:But why? by zieroh · · Score: 1

      The D's also want to keep the poor people in their place.

      No. False. Completely. The D's want to uplift the poor, full stop.

      --
      People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
    92. Re:But why? by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 2

      Tim Cook has made demonstrably more money for Apple than Steve Jobs technically did. Now a lot of that is carrying on momentum, but Cook isn't exactly driving the company into a ditch. He's been CEO of Apple for more than 5 years, and those have been 5 really exemplary years. Look over the last 5 years of product releases and see how much great stuff has come out of them.

      When you take the long view, years like this aren't actually terribly relevant. Whether Apple continues to innovate and make big things is a long term question, and a few quarters of *slower growth* doesn't necessarily presage a huge failure.

      Cook doesn't need to 'seriously step up his game'--Apple is the biggest, most successful company in the world right now. There are bound to be times where they stumble and are only slightly more rich than everyone else. Cook DOES need to be careful that he's thinking about the company's future, that the products in the pipeline are where the puck is going to be, not where the puck is right now, and that they don't get complacent just because they ARE so large. Maybe he needs to shorten Jony Ive's leash a bit or give C-Fed more resources to crush bugs in iOS/macOS, I'm not sure. Either way, I don't think you can make that assessment right now.

    93. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nevermind the $36 million in stock options Tim Cook sold back in August. Or his estimated $785 million in overall net worth. I'm sure he has worked 785 times as hard as the brilliant mid-level Apple engineer who managed to scrape and save over the years to a $1 million net worth.

      Hard life indeed...

    94. Re:But why? by larryjoe · · Score: 1

      What's so "incredible" about a $9 million salary for the CEO of one of the most valuable companies anywhere?

      It's downright pedestrian compared to what many sports players get to throw a ball or make tackles, and it comes with a massively higher responsibility to boot.

      Remember that Steve Job's salary was $1. Why? Because it's good PR, and it results in tremendous tax savings by shifting the income to capital gains. Tim Cook has been paid nearly $400 worth of Apple stock with another nearly $400 million upcoming in the next few years. His tax savings by paying capital gains taxes instead of income taxes will exceed his entire salary.

    95. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you're paid what you're worth to the person paying you

      Only if he's paying you out of his own pocket. I don't believe this is the case for large corporations. And to the parent, a star athlete is expected to individually perform/produce/contribute in proportion to his payment. A star athlete has easily identifiable skills that can be measured. As a result, a star athlete is paid considerably more than his manager. Again, I don't believe this is the case for large corporations.

    96. Re:But why? by mjwx · · Score: 1

      What's so "incredible" about a $9 million salary for the CEO of one of the most valuable companies anywhere?

      It's downright pedestrian compared to what many sports players get to throw a ball or make tackles, and it comes with a massively higher responsibility to boot.

      Unlike a sports player, a CEO's primary income is not their salary. You see the issue is that salaries are taxable, cant easily be hidden or transferred offshore or disappeared down a loophole. CEO's have many other income streams, stocks and options for one and Cook will definitely be receiving dividends from Apple. This is why Brin and Page at Google have a $1 salary, it's all a tax dodge.

      What's happened here is that Apple needs to keep the marketing hype in overdrive as they're bleeding customers. This means saying anything to get their name into the news. The whole gay thing has become passe, so now they need something new.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    97. Re: But why? by coteriescavenger · · Score: 1

      There are three political parties: the party that knows how to manipulate the ignorant, the party that knows how to manipulate the informed, and the party that tries to be genuine (but you can ignore that one). If you believe republicans are more harmful to the poor than democrats, you're part of the first camp.

      We've studied economics and political philosophy enough to know objectively what type of system works. The problem is that most people, including many who think they're informed, know zilch about such things, yet they all vote. In spite of everything we know, we make societal decisions based on the hunches of the ignorant, and the knee-jerk reactions of the "oppressed".

      Before you vote again, or comment about political parties, please watch a Milton Friedman video, or even Thomas Sowell. And for god sakes, you don't have to vote republican, but NEVER vote democrat. All they do is indoctrinate and radicalize people with objectively false lies.

    98. Re:But why? by lgw · · Score: 1

      Don't go around believing politicians. It's a poor life strategy, and makes you look foolish.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    99. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tim Cook was already prepaid to be CEO with a retention award. He received 1 million restricted stock units in 2011 when he became CEO. Half of which fully matured 2016 and the other half in 2021. At the time, the value was assessed at $376 million at the time. Given the increase in stock price since then (don't forget the 7:1 split in June 2014), I think he has been extremely well compensate to just stay around for 10 years.

    100. Re:But why? by lgw · · Score: 1

      The same math works for almost every CEO, is the thing. You're not getting paid noticeably less because your CEO is paid well - it just doesn't work that way. Jealousy and envy are not good character traits.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    101. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tim Cook ... been CEO of Apple for more than 5 years, and those have been 5 really exemplary years. Look over the last 5 years of product releases and see how much great stuff has come out of them.

      I'm looking. I don't see anything.

    102. Re:But why? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      If they decided to slash Cook's pay by 90% to $900,000/year, do you think he would quit? And if he did quit, would it be really bad for Apple? Is Apple dependent on Tim Cook, or is it the sum of all its parts and the many many people who work there?

      The answer is probably somewhere in the middle. At this point though I imagine they won't replace him with someone cheaper simply because it's not worth rocking the incredibly profitable boat and taking a chance on his replacement being as good.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    103. Re:But why? by Tharkkun · · Score: 1

      The question that never seems to get asked is: Why do these executives get these incredible salaries? Does anybody - apart from the tiny elite at the top - really think it is good value for money?

      That's not really the question. Steve Jobs was demonstrably worth hundreds of billions of dollars to Apple's shareholders.

      The real question is "why do these executives continue to get incredible salaries when they demonstrably do nothing for the company?"

      The issue is that they're being paid as if they're founders when, in fact, they're simply running a ship that someone else built and set out to sea. It's not the same job and nowhere near as difficult. Jobs took a company that was nearly bankrupt and turned it into the world's most valuable company. Unless Cook seriously steps up his game he either needs to be paid $100K/year for the job he's doing or replaced. If he's not replaced soon, Apple will likely be irreparably harmed.

      It's the traditional Apple cycle. If Jobs was still at the helm we'd be in the same place we are now. Apple was already in a downturn as competition designed cheaper products.

    104. Re: But why? by Atomic+Fro · · Score: 1

      Jobs had a vision. For him Apple was not just a spreadsheet of metrics with which to extract the most amount of wealth from and then leave.

      Jobs genuinely wanted to change the world with technology while also making a living at it. Was he a douche? Sure. Was he a manipulative son of a bitch? Perhaps. But he knew what he wanted to do and he seeked out the talent to make that happen.

      Apple without a visionary is not Apple. Tim Cook and Jony Ives are not visionaries. I am without a doubt sure that the were the best people for the jobs they did while Jobs was there, however with out the direction/management that Jobs brought to the table, Apple is just adrift.

      That spark Jobs, Gates, Hewlet, Packard, all the former great tech founders had is gone and have been replaced with out of sync number crunchers only interested in cost cutting and maximizing profit.

      --

      ==================
      Hippie Logger Jock
      ==================
    105. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a lot of pressure. I think I would pass on 9 million/year for that kind of responsibility.

      I never understand this perspective. What is the absolute worst that could happen, if you were the absolute worst executive ever?

      You'd only make 9 million a year for a shorter, rather than longer, period, and you'd get then another job making less, after banking that massive salary while you had it.

      It's the same (frankly) bizarre mindset of people who think CEO's (or multi-millionaire investors) are taking "risk". Their risk is they may go from incredibly rich to slightly less incredibly rich. The middle-class guy who can't go a month after losing his job without not being able to feed or house his family, that guy has risk. "Risk" of the wealthy is just self-aggrandizing bullshit.

    106. Re:But why? by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 1

      The pie is the total revenue of Apple (specifically, $215.6 billion) so every penny that Tim Cook and the other executives get is a penny that didn't go to the people actually doing the work. Yes, I realize it would only be a difference of a few cents per employee, but it's still unfair for one person to make more in one day (day after day) than most people make in a year.

      So what you're saying is now that Cook's compensation has been cut, all other Apple workers have been given raises? Because that's what the implication would be to your line of thinking.

      --
      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    107. Re:But why? by cdrudge · · Score: 2

      Tim Cook has been paid nearly $400 worth of Apple stock...

      So almost 4 shares. Impressive.

    108. Re:But why? by jsepeta · · Score: 2

      Any salary over $1M is more than a person needs to live in a year, and is the failure of the board of directors to focus on making the company more profitable.

      --
      Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
    109. Re: But why? by dgatwood · · Score: 2

      Unless they removed him after SJ left, Woz still has badge access.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    110. Re:But why? by larryjoe · · Score: 1

      Tim Cook has been paid nearly $400 worth of Apple stock...

      So almost 4 shares. Impressive.

      What a few million shares between friends? :) Yes, he's been paid nearly $400 million in Apple stock, with another nearly $400 million in the next 5 years. That is definitely impressive, especially next to the measly $10 million or so for his salary.

    111. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *fallacy of relative privation
      *not-as-bad-as fallacy

    112. Re: But why? by avandesande · · Score: 1

      Like Cook's lie about fitting all the US tool and die makers in one room?

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    113. Re:But why? by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      I never understand this perspective. What is the absolute worst that could happen, if you were the absolute worst executive ever?

      You die of a heart attack prematurely from over stressing?

      I guess I am just a worrier...

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    114. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "Apple has done nothing since Jobs died. Literally, they have coasted. I could grab the local McDonald's manager and put him in Tim Cook's place and get - at worst - the same result."
      Since Cook took control in 2011, Apple's Market Cap has doubled, from ~$315B to ~$630B. Think about that for a moment, both in the percentage increase, and the actual numbers. By that standard alone, not one that I'm particularly fond of, Cook is a brilliant Leader. Could a neighborhood McDonald's manager have done as well? Possibly. Is there any record in the history of Corporations that anything like this has ever been done before? No. Could Cook have done better? Better than just _who_?

      I agree with you on _some_ your your complaints about Apple's Tech... but where have I heard them before? Oh yes, when Apple went with the emerging original USB standard in the first iMacs, and dispensed with internal Floppies. When Apple first went with Airport, even on the lowend models. Hell, when the very first Mac came with that utterly useless thing, a Mouse. I don't agree with the upcoming abandonment of that decades old standard, the miniature Audio Plug. It will be a while before a set of Bluetooth Ear Pod clones will ~$3 at Best Buy. (But I have a new idea for that old standard; it is inherently polarized.) But it _will_ happen, because it's not just Apple that is pushing this.

      "They didn't even upgrade the memory capacity - still stuck at 16GB."
      I'm not doing the Gates quote. But you should look closely about why all of a sudden, 16GB isn't enough. Could it be because we now have the most inept generation of Coders ever, whose concept of optimizing code is simply throwing more hardware at it? (Are you one of them?) Just why is Code these days so bloated?

      "But you'd think they could have at least maintained standard upgrade paths for the existing products."
      But they do. Apple supports in maintenance, software, upgrades, and OS fixes for most products for about five years. (They have done a miserable job on MagSafe insulation, though.) Which is two to three years beyond typical Corporate replacement cycles. But why further back than that? Should they still be supporting SCSI, Firewire, and internal CD/DVD Drives?

      That this is decades-old Planned Obsolescence I won't dispute. My 2006 12" PowerBook still serves 2006 needs, as a music and photo server, and for simple text editing and email tasks. (Its Wifi just works, and it's original power cord is still intact...) Hell, I can still play "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly" on its internal DVD drive. But not all Planned Obsolescence is _bad_. Progress has to come from somewhere. Macs have always represented and ridden the Cutting Edge... even if in the case of the Cutting Edge, there have been no significant advances in CPU Tech in the last three years. But USB-C is _new_. (Yup, for power, I still prefer MagSafe...) Third Party Goodies will come along. Abandoning Ethernet? Wifi/Cellular is nearly ubiquitous.
      I don't particularly like the new need for Dongles, but they will go away once Peripheral Tech catches up.

      Now for those who just insist on maintaining backward compatibility with all of their old peripherals, with some effort and a fair amount of failure, one can make a Hackintosh. But it won't have the form factor, weight, or size of the new MacBook Pros. But one just might be able to run their old Epson SCSI Scanner on it...

      Captcha: pining
      The Fjords are always so lovely this time of year...

    115. Re:But why? by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      You could have fooled me. If there isn't an under class, who can they claim to champion?

    116. Re:But why? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Transparency at the top of public companies helps limit income inequality and corruption. Personally I'd prefer if all salaries were public.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    117. Re:But why? by painandgreed · · Score: 2

      Ya, I'm an L that votes for whatever failed R they usually get myself. I'm in a strong Bernie state and even caucused for him (mainly to go through and see the caucus process, I could never find any info on L caucusing if there was any) and have to say that I never got any strong message from Hillary supporters as to any message. We let all three in my caucus group go and they pretty much had nothing to say but "It'll be nice to have a woman as President." One ex-Brit woman who is now an American replied "That's what I thought voting for Thatcher the first time she ran." Later I would usually ask H supporters, "Ok, besides that she's a woman and she's not Trump, what message does she have or why should I vote for her other than Bernie?" and usually got nothing. While I think she has much better experience, plays a decent backroom political game, and would be a better President than T, she doesn't have a fraction of the charisma or appeal to the public as any SNL character of her had.

    118. Re:But why? by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      What's so "incredible" about a $9 million salary for the CEO of one of the most valuable companies anywhere?

      What's incredible about it is, he's a lousy leader.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    119. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wish my mommy and daddy had been 1-percenters so I could get paid so well when I fail.

      Oh, but I forgot. Only LAZY people are poor!

    120. Re: But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For the same reason basketball players get millions... It's harder than it looks, one minor mistake can end careers, and despite what jealous dipshits like you believe, not just anyone is capable of doing it.

    121. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Her "experience" and "backroom game" are reasons to not vote for her. Trump's a buffoon but Hillary was plainly dangerous. Neither one of them was going to do anything for the man on the street but Hillary could have caused some real damage.

    122. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't see you offering up alternatives, fucker. Piss and moan? Sure! Come up with a real answer? Fuck no or else you wouldn't be on Slashdot.

      You finger pointing little faggots with no real stance can jam a knife up your asshole. Too afraid to tell us what you're for because you know the same thing you accuse others of is the same for whomever you support, if anyone.

      What a little bitch you are.

    123. Re: But why? by martinX · · Score: 1

      Jobs had a vision. ... Was he a douche? ... Was he a manipulative son of a bitch?

      Because he was the first one, he could come across as the other two. When you have a vision and the drive to do it, then it's "get on the bus or get out of the way".

      Tim Cook has a second-hand vision.

      --
      When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
    124. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would you be stressed. You get millions for doing basically nothing. Keep doing what you're doing boys, heck of a job. Where's my millions?

    125. Re:But why? by SoftwareArtist · · Score: 1

      I have a lot of friends who are Democrats. I can say with complete confidence that none of them want to "keep the poor people in their place". In fact, many of them are passionately concerned about helping the poor.

      I don't know what your stereotypes for Republicans are (you didn't say why you're "not a fan" of them), but I suspect they're an equally bad description of the Republicans I know.

      Stereotypes rarely match reality very well. At best they're an extreme oversimplification, and often they're simply false.

      --
      "I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
    126. Re:But why? by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      What business is it of yours what some else at a private company gets paid?

      So, I wrote out a lot of negative consequences of extreme income inequality, but I realized that you're probably just going to come back with some absolute economic rights as axiomatic proof that you're correct. In which case, I would say that the Principle/Agent problem leads to the Board of Directors overcompensating C-level officials, where "overcompensating" means beyond what is the financial best interest of the shareholders.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    127. Re:But why? by sir-gold · · Score: 1

      So we should just take what little they deign to give us and be happy with it?

      It's not about jealousy, it's about fairness. They don't work 200x harder, or 200x more hours, or have 200x more stress and risk, so why do they get 200x more money? (and that is for someone at median income, it's even worse for the minimum-wage workers)

    128. Re:But why? by sir-gold · · Score: 1

      No, but it means they COULD have been given raises. Who knows where that $2 million difference actually went (probably into some offshore tax-haven)

    129. Re:But why? by zieroh · · Score: 1

      The D's consist of far more than politicians.

      --
      People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
    130. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple hasn't released anything even remotely interesting in the last five years. Cook has been coasting on the work of the people that came before him and this year they took a huge hit to their reputation.

    131. Re:But why? by Gussington · · Score: 1

      That's a lot of pressure. I think I would pass on 9 million/year for that kind of responsibility. I live ok. I don't have access to all the toys, but I am relatively happy with what I got.

      Same here. We talk about being rich and famous as young people, but as I age I prefer quiet and comfortable.

    132. Re:But why? by Gussington · · Score: 1

      The real question is "why do these executives continue to get incredible salaries when they demonstrably do nothing for the company?"

      It's not nothing. Cook is still running the world most profitable company successfully, just slightly less successfully than the board would like. It's not like he's just sitting at home playing World of Warcraft while the company tanks.

    133. Re:But why? by Jack9 · · Score: 1

      > The D's want to uplift the poor, full stop.

      No. False. Completely.

      This is fun.

      --

      Often wrong but never in doubt.
      I am Jack9.
      Everyone knows me.
    134. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But sucking up to the elites is the surest way to become one yourself isn't it. C'mon, just work that little bit harder.

    135. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Basically according to various US govt. agencies, Tim Cook 'earns' the equivalent value of about 1 human life per year.

      There should be some meaning or greater conclusion to draw from that, even if you disagree with the specific number given.

    136. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tim Cook has only led the most successful company ever. For just salary (not stock), he could probably get paid 10x more to go to just about any other company.

      You're right. Apple should pay him $85 million to never come back.

      PS - Yes, that's tongue-in-cheek obviously. The real issue isn't that Tim Cook is paid $8.5 million. It's that so many more CEOs are paid ridiculous amounts. If Tim Cook's salary were the actual effective cap on CEO pay, then it'd make a lot more sense. It really undermines the whole "free market" BS. Instead, CEOs are a lot like professional athletes: because so much money is involved (and there's so little room for competition), all (high enough) levels can demand enormous salaries and it's still a profitable venture. So, that's what happens.

    137. Re:But why? by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Well, he got like $350M in stock options a few years back, so there's that.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    138. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By that logic, it'd be okay if Tim Cook were to just hand out $8.75 million to a random person on the street. Or a random accountant at Apple to embezzle $8.75 million. I mean, it amounts to basically nothing, right?

      Or do act against it because in principle if we just allow these things to occur and go unpunished, we end up in a system where enough people do these things--*cough*other CEOs*cough*--that there's a clear net negative effect on society.

      I mean, hell, it's the same way with the US election. In the end, in each election, it's only the last plurality vote that matters. So, who cares if there's ballot stuffing that has no effect on the final outcome? Or if they change your vote to be for the other candidate?

      Simply put, trying to reduce the argument down to one of mathematics is absurd. The overriding point, that there's something fundamentally wrong with paying a CEO such an extravagant salary/stock/options, still stands even if it has no real net effect on the outcome.

      PS - Your argument is something I like to call the irreducibility problem of wealth. At some level, the value of something is converted down to a currency with a fixed bottom value. So, you can round up or down and possibly try to negotiate bulk rates to shave off pennies. But the overall point is that eventually you down to the level where it's not possibly to split a penny and so there's a net advantage of value that rounding gives to a seller of any mass produced good that grants them value above what could be consider the "correct" price in a free market sense. Some times--maybe even most times--this is more cultural than an actual limit on currency (and why gas sells at a fraction of a cent less per gallon while most other products sell at $0.01 or $1 less than 1x, 5x, 10x, or 100x a dollar value). Honestly, just imagine a $0.99 store and a $1 store opening side by side. What do you image the outcome would be vs what the free market theory says?

    139. Re:But why? by lgw · · Score: 1

      Your argument is what jealousy is. It's how young children think: he has more it's not fair. CEOs make more because of supply and demand, like most jobs. They make about the same as professional athletes and top-tier entertainers, and for the same reason: scale.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    140. Re:But why? by lgw · · Score: 1

      Fair point, I forget the journalists, but they're even less trustworthy.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    141. Re:But why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CEOs make more because of supply and demand, like most jobs. They make about the same as professional athletes and top-tier entertainers, and for the same reason: scale.

      Actually, that's an argument for why Apple's top designers, engineers, etc should be being paid $8.75 million, not the CEO. Of course, then the CEO will demand to be paid even more because they think it an "unfair" inversion that their subordinates are paid more than they are.

    142. Re:But why? by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      Why would Samsung (team B) want him when hes doing poorly at team A? He should be flipping burgers like the rest of the board.

      Don't assume that Samsung is the only team B that would be interested. Many C-levels switch. Remember John Scully coming to Apple from Pepsi?

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    143. Re:But why? by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      A subtle distinction, but you're paid what you're worth to the person paying you.

      FIFY: You're paid as little as the person paying you can get with paying you.

      Then you're not worth any more. Unless you can find another person to shell out a higher figure.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    144. Re:But why? by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      Why isn't the worker assembling the phones also as valuable? Because he didn't design the phone? Neither did Cook. So where does this "value" come from?

      Simple: there is no value. It's simply human theater with personalities and egos rewarding each other for having manipulated and lied their way into a position to receive that kind of money.

      Should their pay be cut as well? Or, should Apple just lay off some of them since the phones are selling so well?

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    145. Re: But why? by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      "One problem is that executives really be getting paid through equity. That is, they earn money when the value of the company increases. I believe there are a lot of people who could run Apple as well or better than Tim Cook. Steve Jobs was unique in his ability to transform and grow Apple, but Cook seems very pedestrian"

      Who would you replace him with that wouldn't look "pedestrian" next to Jobs? Pay through equity is an excellent incentive for executives to improve the value of the company for their shareholders. It's been around, longer than anyone reading this. If you think you can improve upon it, please give it a try.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    146. Re:But why? by lgw · · Score: 1

      Actually, that's an argument for why Apple's top designers, engineers, etc should be being paid $8.75 million, not the CEO.

      Lots of "designers" in the world. Senior Apple engineers make around $240k per Glassdoor--I'm sure "top" ones do better--so they're doing OK. Pay is all about the use usefulness of one additional person in the role, vs the difficulty in hiring one additional person. Credible CEO candidates for large orgs are rare, and you only hire one of them, so it pays more.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  5. Pass the hat by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

    please

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  6. Devastating cuts? by infernalC · · Score: 1

    He went to making more money than God down to more money than God, just a little less. Good grief. Who really needs to make 7 figures? /me ducks

    1. Re:Devastating cuts? by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      He made 9 figures...

      And gets 10 figures in stock.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    2. Re:Devastating cuts? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 0

      Figures....

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  7. Obligatory 'Tiniest Violin' Comment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just for good measure... since I'm finding it harder and harder to care about how much more/less a millionaire makes on a year to year basis.

  8. Falling sales not a huge surprise by sjbe · · Score: 5, Informative

    Apple last year faced declining revenue as it grappled with the first prolonged slump in iPhone sales.

    Not really shocking. The iPhone 7 is barely different from the iPhone 6. They gave users no reason to upgrade. They've basically ignored the Macintosh line for several years now. They haven't done anything particularly novel or interesting in their iPad line in quite a while. They introduced the Apple Pencil but didn't really commit to building the software to make it useful or give users a way to store it in/with the device between uses. I hate to say it but the Microsoft Surface line has been a lot more innovative recently. The Apple Watch was always going to be a niche product at best and they haven't done anything interesting with Apple TV.

    Apple hasn't released anything new or noteworthy so why should their revenue be expected to go up. Their products are still good but they really need to push the envelope a bit more if they want to maintain their current gaudy profit margins.

    1. Re:Falling sales not a huge surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really shocking. The iPhone 7 is barely different from the iPhone 6. They gave users no reason to upgrade

      Oh, please. Have you forgotten the courageous removal of the mini-headphone jack? Gone are the days when the left and right speaker are in perfect sync. Gone are the days when your audio and video were in sync.

      They introduced the Apple Pencil but didn't really commit to building the software to make it useful or give users a way to store it in/with the device between uses.

      Truly innovative is the Apple Pencil. Pricy, laggy, hit or miss pressure sensitivity, noticeable parallax, slippery to hold and doesn't even have an eraser. Shut up and take my money, Apple!

    2. Re:Falling sales not a huge surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They actually gave users a reason *not* to upgrade: that "courageous" removal of the headphone jack.

      I had an old phone that was falling apart needed upgrading, so I went with the SE for that reason. Half the price, too.

    3. Re:Falling sales not a huge surprise by Guspaz · · Score: 1

      The rumour on the iPhone 7 is that they had intended for a more substantial redesign. A move to OLED, the removal of the home button, touch ID directly on the screen instead of a separate button, etc. They wanted to turn the entire front of the phone into a big display. Unfortunately, things weren't ready, so the iPhone 7 was their fallback plan.

    4. Re:Falling sales not a huge surprise by Guspaz · · Score: 1

      > Gone are the days when the left and right speaker are in perfect sync.

      That is only a potential problem when using earbuds that aren't connected. Regular bluetooth headphones and earbuds are accepting a single stereo audio stream, and don't have that problem.

      > Gone are the days when your audio and video were in sync.

      I don't see why the external audio DAC in the lightning headphone adapter should have any more latency than the internal DAC in the previous iPhones did. That said, the 40ms latency of aptX LL is quick enough to avoid any perceptible sync issues. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't support it, or regular aptX for that matter.

    5. Re:Falling sales not a huge surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, you sure packed a lot of wrong into that post.

      Sure, the iPhone 7 _case_ is barely different from the iPhone 6. And yes, there is no reason to upgrade... unless you want a much better camera, faster CPU, faster Touch ID, force touch, water resistance...

      They mostly ignored the _desktop_ Mac line for several years now, but the MacBook (introduced last year) was a very significant change as was the MacBook Pro introduced this year.

      They haven't done anything particular novel or interesting in the iPad line... except for the iPad Pro.

      They haven't done anything interesting with AppleTV... except release a brand new Apple TV with an app store just over a year ago.

    6. Re: Falling sales not a huge surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This isn't the only time it's happen with Apple. They had to ditch their new battery design on the new MBP and fallback to the old design.

      Seems without Jobs there to light the fire under the engineers asses, things just aren't getting finished in time. This is why Jobs was so "mean". He wanted a product his way or it was the highway.

      I highly doubt Apple would even be around if Tim was CEO instead of Jobs. Can you imagine the direction the company would have went without Jobs?

    7. Re:Falling sales not a huge surprise by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 1

      The 7 is demonstrably better in every single metric than both the iPhone 6 or 6s. The processor isn't just a little bit faster, it's a lot faster. It's not just faster, it's more efficient per clock cycle. Meanwhile, it has twice the storage regardless of selected tier, gets the same battery life, unlocks faster and has a better camera. The outer casing on the jet black models may scratch more easily, but it's grippier, so you're less likely to drop it without a case.

      The only thing that you might be able to mark as a regression is the loss of the headphone jack, but that's pretty subjective.

      See, the problem with complaining about it being 'barely different' is that it seems to largely hinge on the aesthetic, which people complained changed TOO MUCH before. "Why can't Apple just leave things alone? This design is great!" Now it's, "God, this looks a lot like the last one. Apple has lost its touch!" Apple will never win that stupid war, because someone will always complain.

      There are lots of problems with stuff coming out of Apple; I think leaving the Mac Pro to languish for over 1000 days is a travesty. The Apple TV has failed to be compelling in a lot of ways, and the design of the remote is ridiculous. Dropping their Pro line of creative apps was a huge mistake. My list goes on for a while too. But I think it detracts from the argument when we claim things like the iPhone 7 isn't different and isn't better. Maybe they've failed to make the case for how much better it is, but that's on their marketing department.

    8. Re:Falling sales not a huge surprise by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      Not to mention the fact that carriers have reduced subsidies. Paying $700 versus $199 is quite different.

    9. Re:Falling sales not a huge surprise by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      The only thing that you might be able to mark as a regression is the loss of the headphone jack, but that's pretty subjective.

      Funny how it seems to be correlated with iphone's loss of market share, don't you think?

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    10. Re:Falling sales not a huge surprise by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      40 ms of latency would actually be grotesquely bad unless corrected for by software. The threshold of perception for A/V sync issues is somewhere around 12–15 milliseconds. By 30 ms, you can consciously recognize that they are out of sync. CoreAudio provides audio device latency information that bubbles all the way through to the app, and most apps do actually take it into account, so for the most part, unless a device lies about its latency, audio and video tend to usually be in sync in my experience.

      The main problem with Bluetooth audio, from my perspective, is losing entire words every time I pause playback and restart it, forcing me to skip back several seconds to find out what I missed. And the cause of these problems is not latency, but rather power management. At last check, iOS only provides latency info to CoreAudio, but doesn't provide the preroll time required for powering up the highly power-managed Bluetooth stack. So when you resume playback, there's often nobody listening for the first quarter of a second while the iOS device desperately tries to reconnect to the Bluetooth device.

      The end result is that a significant chunk of audio gets lost entirely whenever you pause and resume playback unless the Bluetooth audio stack remains up from the last time. This wouldn't be a big deal if you were coming back after pausing for several minutes, but it is very annoying if I pause Netflix for fifteen seconds to check a calendar entry, switch back, start playback, and then am forced to rewind ten seconds because I missed an entire word. Sometimes I don't even have to leave the app, IIRC.

      IMO, iOS is way too aggressive at managing Bluetooth power, which is, of course, because the battery is way too small, which in turn is because the devices are too thin. And of course, the lack of AptX is probably because of the power budget involved, too.

      So to make a long story short, everything that is wrong with iOS audio, from the missing headphone jack to the bad Bluetooth performance, is caused by Apple's obsession with waifish thinness. Come on, guys. It's unhealthy. Really it is.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    11. Re: Falling sales not a huge surprise by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      I suspect it is actually the other way around—that the deadlines were unrealistic, and that Tim Cook's insistence on meeting those deadlines anyway caused products to be announced (and in some cases to ship) before they were really ready, but I suppose it could be a combination of the two.

      With SJ, if the technology had not been ready, he would probably have said something like, "We can't release this s**t. Call me when you're actually ready to show me something." If they had a fallback plan at all, it would have been a minor speed bump with no other changes, intended to hold folks over until the real product could be released a few months later, but realistically they would probably have slipped the announcement date by a few months to accommodate the delays in component availability so that they could ship what they wanted to ship instead of a shipping a compromise.

      Apple's iOS devices didn't ship precisely on a yearly schedule under Jobs. Before his death, they shipped in June, July, June, June, and October, respectively. (Okay, so the October release was technically after his death, but just days after.) Ever since then, the iPhone has shipped precisely in mid-to-late September every single year. And OS X releases fell into a fairly strict 1-year release cadence at the same time. I think that this deadline-oriented planning is a major contributing factor to the decline in product quality that many of us perceive. They aren't taking the time they need to get things right before the products go out the door, and more and more often, they aren't able to get the bugs fixed in the previous software release before they ship a new release that introduces new bugs. And now, we're seeing the same problems on the hardware side.

      I think it is time for Apple management to take a step back and slow down a little.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    12. Re:Falling sales not a huge surprise by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      The 7 is demonstrably better in every single metric than both the iPhone 6 or 6s. The processor isn't just a little bit faster, it's a lot faster.

      Which is good, but as Steve Jobs was quick to point out, most real people don't care about specs. They care about what the device will actually do. Sure, the CPU in the iPhone 7 might be half again faster than the one in the iPhone 6s, but if the one in the iPhone 6s was fast enough to meet their needs, the extra speed gives them nothing of value. I mean, there's nothing wrong with CPU speeds increasing, but realistically, that isn't a feature that users care about at all (at least until after they have updated the OS through three or four major releases and it starts to bog down).

      It's not just faster, it's more efficient per clock cycle. Meanwhile, it has twice the storage regardless of selected tier, gets the same battery life,

      This is the point where your argument went off the rails. If the CPU is more efficient per clock cycle, you'd expect it to get much better battery life. If it just gets the same battery life, then IMO there's something fundamentally wrong....

      unlocks faster and has a better camera.

      I don't recall ever feeling like my 6s unlocks too slowly. It's a small amount of time and done fairly infrequently. Any effort to optimize that is, IMO, wasted effort that could have been spent improving other things that actually impact consumers, like battery life, visibility in sunlight, or the idiotic power button placement that makes it hard to press without simultaneously pressing a volume button, thus canceling the power button's behavior. There are so many glaring flaws in the iPhone 6s that it isn't even funny, yet they chose to focus on making the phone unlock faster—something which I suspect exactly *zero* real users care about.

      As for the camera improvements, the "portrait mode" is a gimmick. It often looks glaringly fake, and to really get it right, you would need a minimum of five cameras and a lot more distance between them. The 2x zoom capability from the second camera would be nice on occasion, but it isn't enough to be very useful in practice. I can't think of a single situation where a 2x zoom ratio or faux bokeh would cause me to leave my DSLR at home. So from my perspective, the iPhone 7 camera isn't really any better than the iPhone 6s camera except for the half stop difference in aperture, which might occasionally result in a shot being salvageable when it otherwise wouldn't be, and only if I didn't have my real camera with me.

      Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have that camera in my 6s, but I would get far less use out of it than I do my headphone jack, which I use almost daily, as opposed to my iPhone camera which (if you don't count barcode scanning with the Amazon app) I use probably single-digit times per year. And the notion of that being a major improvement is kind of crazy. A major improvement is comparing the iPhone 3G camera to the iPhone 4 camera. In the same number of generations, it added autofocus and backside illumination. The difference was jaw-dropping. Now compare the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 7, and the difference is basically meh. Heck, the difference between the iPhone 5 camera and the iPhone 7 camera is pretty meh by comparison. The technology is largely mature, and there aren't really many improvements to be made at this point.

      See, the problem with complaining about it being 'barely different' is that it seems to largely hinge on the aesthetic, which people complained changed TOO MUCH before. "Why can't Apple just leave things alone? This design is great!" Now it's, "God, this looks a lot like the last one. Apple has lost its touch!" Apple will never win that stupid war, because someone will always complain.

      It has nothing to do with the appearance. The iPhone 7 removed a feature that some peo

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    13. Re:Falling sales not a huge surprise by Guspaz · · Score: 1

      40 ms of latency would actually be grotesquely bad unless corrected for by software.

      It really wouldn't be: the vast majority of displays/TVs add more delay to the video than that, for example. You won't notice lipsync issues at 40ms, which is less than one frame of 23.976fps video. I'm going to call BS on a sub-frame amount of delay being an issue, and I'm speaking as somebody who's overly sensitive to latency issues and tries to stick to CRTs for retro gaming.

      iOS may be overly aggressive with power management, but at least it consistently connects with AAC. Getting OS X to connect with AAC is a huge pain in the neck, and bluetooth range/reliability is pretty poor on a macbook compared to an iPhone. So at least the iPhone "just works" and works reliably. When I'm listening to music, the power management isn't an issue. When I'm watching a video on a mobile device (and not a PC or TV), I'm usually traveling somewhere and wouldn't be pausing too often.

    14. Re:Falling sales not a huge surprise by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 1

      The same battery life is due to a slightly smaller volume battery, obviously. Apple has targets for battery life, and all they've ever tried to do is hit them. This is pretty well known. They appear to aim for about 10 hours of usage, and a CPU that's more efficient for clock is going to get better battery life all things being equal, but Apple took battery out to make space for other things. That's how it goes. (A word on whether people care about the speed of the processor: obviously they do, but it's a bit hidden. My iPhone 6 isn't going to run the newest apps as well as the 7, which is just how it goes. Applications will inevitably consume all available resources, and people will notice when their phones seem to be behind more than they'll notice that the 7 is ahead. That's as it should be.)

      The iPhone 7 camera is better no matter which model you look at, even before you get to portrait mode. The standard 7 has optical image stabilisation, which is important. The 2x zoom on the 7 Plus may be a gimmick, but it's a real optical zoom. Portrait mode is definitely something of a trick and a whole lot of fakery, but the actual hardware is actually better.

      Whether or not the iPhone 7 ends up being more compelling to the customer isn't really the argument that I'm making. The original claim is that it was 'barely different', and that's *not true*. There are very few shared parts between the 7 and any of its predecessors. You can measure the ways in which the iPhone 7 has changed; these are empirical facts, not subjective evaluations.

      Again, Apple may be failing to make a compelling case to why you should upgrade, and perhaps their priorities are misaligned with what the market desires. But to say the phone isn't different isn't true.

  9. Poor guy! by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

    Only 8 millions! How will he possibly survive?

    Folks, let's start a Patreon for him, we cannot let him starve.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Poor guy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lol but seriously, who gets to do his performance review? I can't imagine what that poor fellow (Tim Cook) went through...

    2. Re:Poor guy! by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      lottery pays something like it...

    3. Re:Poor guy! by Anubis+IV · · Score: 1

      It gets even better. Contrary to the headline, 2016 was actually his highest-paid year yet. Yes, his base salary was lower, but the reporting over at MacRumors mentions this tidbit (emphasis mine):

      While Cook earned roughly $1.5 million less from his base salary and non-equity incentives in 2016, it was also the year in which he reached five years as CEO and unlocked nearly $137 million in previously-awarded stock bonuses tied to both his tenure and Apple's performance under his leadership. Accordingly, Cook earned roughly $145 million last year, his biggest payout yet as head of the company.

      In other words, while he didn't receive $1.5 million on account of missing the goals for 2016, he still received additional compensation worth $137 million for hitting the 5-year goals they set when he began as CEO, so the poor guy shouldn't starve anytime soon.

    4. Re:Poor guy! by computational+super · · Score: 1

      Only 8 millions! How will he possibly survive?

      You laugh, but is he married? Believe me, if he made 10 million last year, she's going to spend 10 million this year, whether he brings in all 10 of those million or not.

      --
      Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
    5. Re:Poor guy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Courage!

    6. Re:Poor guy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tim Cook is gay

    7. Re:Poor guy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't that "he's going to spend..."?

    8. Re:Poor guy! by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Even worse, how can he continue being fabulous with only 8 millions to blow?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    9. Re:Poor guy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cook is gay.

  10. At least it's something.... by beheaderaswp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's face it... it's not as if replacing Jobs was going to be an easy task- it may have been impossible.

    That being said, Apple is not living up to the standard Jobs set. Maybe that's Cook's fault... maybe not. The recent products are lame. They've eviscerated their computer business. So if new products don't hit... it's not like they can fall back on the unfulfilled promise of OSX. They've been so successful with new consumer innovations, they've tossed away all the vertical markets they used to rule.

    This is a dangerous position. They shouldn't cut his pay- they should fire him and find someone to take over.

    --
    Another consultant who stuck it out.

    "We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
    1. Re:At least it's something.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Problem was always that Jobs was a "visionary" who could direct the design process of the hardware and software while Cook was a numbers man whose expertise is the bottom line. When you want a new tech product you don't ask your accountant but this is essentially what is happening at Apple

    2. Re:At least it's something.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ROTFL. If you're looking for stupid, you can always find it in Slashdot comments.

      Cook has been in charge of Apple for 5 years, and in many ways was in charge for several years before that. During this time they have made a staggering amount of money. The iPhone is probably the most profitable product in the history of mankind, and most of that profit has come under his leadership.

      But hey, let's fire him because the MacBook Pro doesn't have an SD card slot.

    3. Re:At least it's something.... by segedunum · · Score: 1

      I never understood why Jobs recommended Cook. Cook was a process guy who came from Compaq for crying out loud. Maybe he simply didn't care at that point?

      Job always railed against sales, marketing and accounting people running things, especially in his lost then found interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    4. Re:At least it's something.... by segedunum · · Score: 1

      The decline always takes time. The problem is, once it has taken hold and most have noticed it is already too late.

    5. Re:At least it's something.... by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 2

      Maybe he wanted Cook to push the rest of his stuff out to market and another idea person might not have done that. A numbers guy will keep the ship steady on course. The problem is that Cook has been there for too long and it appears that innovation has stagnated. So they are buying companies and plastering Apples interface over their work. And the biggest problem is that Apple is concentrating on the big, shiny new thing and letting everything else go.

      Apple desperately needs someone to come in and get people back onto the Apple philosophy. Their current Music iOS application doesn't have that ease of use because it forces uses to take a lot of extra steps that previous versions didn't. And having different features on the iPhones based on the screen size is a terrible decision.

    6. Re:At least it's something.... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      ROTFL. If you're looking for stupid, you can always find it in Slashdot comments.

      Cook has been in charge of Apple for 5 years, and in many ways was in charge for several years before that. During this time they have made a staggering amount of money. The iPhone is probably the most profitable product in the history of mankind, and most of that profit has come under his leadership.

      I remember reading similar comments here about Microsoft maybe 10 years ago.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    7. Re:At least it's something.... by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      This is a dangerous position.

      Man, I wish very hard to get a dangerous position like it! (for just some months: the $$ could pay for the est of my life!)

    8. Re:At least it's something.... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      they should fire him and find someone to take over.

      Do you think you could find someone better than Tim Cook to do the job?
      I don't think I could.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    9. Re:At least it's something.... by mjwx · · Score: 0

      Problem was always that Jobs was a "visionary" who could direct the design process of the hardware and software while Cook was a numbers man whose expertise is the bottom line. When you want a new tech product you don't ask your accountant but this is essentially what is happening at Apple

      By "visionary" you mean "marketer". Jobs was a marketer who use a cult of personality to sell overpriced crap. Apple was never ahead of the game, it just made itself look like it.

      Now that Jobs is gone and the RDF is failing, people are seeing that.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    10. Re:At least it's something.... by labnet · · Score: 1

      *this*
      Cook is more interested in production supply chain efficiencies than the art of creating great new products.
      And that's not a criticism of him, as that's an important role, but the wrong role for a CEO of technical fashion company.

      --
      46137
    11. Re:At least it's something.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember reading similar comments here about Microsoft maybe 10 years ago.

      In spite of Sweaty ol' Ballmer, and now Nutella...

      Microsoft is still dominant.

      Apple's a non-entity on servers; and a non-player on desktops.

      And meanwhile, Linux still hasn't eroded Microsoft's server stronghold. Having cannibalized commercial Unixes, it's left with nothing to do other than have fools scream, "HURR YER OF LEENICKS ON TEH DESKTOP!!!!!!!!!!" or "LOL LINUX IZ POPULAR CUZ ANDROID!"

      I wouldn't put much stock in Shit Slashdot Says.

    12. Re:At least it's something.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not even remotely true.

      A good educator can look at their teaching material and anticipate in advance the stumbling blocks that learners are going to have and revise their material to suit the learner's needs.

      Steve Jobs had exactly the same gift when it came to computing. People would propose things to him, and he'd say "But why can't it do this. I want it to do this. The users will want it to be able to do this. It would be more intuitive if it worked this way."

      He unquestionably had slip-ups (like the circular mouse), as we all do. (Esp. later in life when he was battling cancer.)

      But he was not solely marketing. Steve Jobs was to computers what Strunk and White is to writers or Tufte is to graphic designers.

    13. Re:At least it's something.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they should fire him and find someone to take over.

      Do you think you could find someone better than Tim Cook to do the job?
        I don't think I could.

      Steve Balmer? :p

  11. New iPhone every year except 2016 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I can remember sitting outside in 2007 waiting for the store to open and start selling the original iPhone. It was hot in the mid-summer sun sitting on that hard concrete, but it was worth it to upgrade from the aging PalmOS. It wasn't perfect, but I loved it. I ended up buying the latest one every year since just to have the fastest version of my favorite phone. That lasted until 2016.

    Of 10 friends (and their spouses), virtually no one has upgraded to an iPhone 7. Half upgraded to a larger storage capacity iPhone 6S intending to keep it for another year or more. The rest have considered Android, but haven't made a purchase. Losing the headphone jack has been a major problem. If it isn't connecting it to your older car with 3.5", but no Bluetooth, it is connecting it to headphones or something else we already own.

    Hopefully Apple will be brave enough to put the headphone jack back in. I can't see using a phone without one. I'm apparently not the only one.

    1. Re:New iPhone every year except 2016 by labnet · · Score: 2

      Yep. I bought an oppo F1 as a temporary phone Between my iPhone 4 In anticipation of the the new iPhone 7. In the mean time, the oppo at 1/3 the price has done everything I've needed it to do + no headphone jack on the 7 = no sale for me. The transition off the apple Eco system wasn't as painful as I thought.

      --
      46137
    2. Re:New iPhone every year except 2016 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I switched to android over it. I was due for a new phone next month and realized that I could save serious money and get a headphone jack. I also never liked the size increase on later iPhones. Went for an iphone 6 to a sony xperia x compact and love it overall. There were a few gotchas (like losing visual voicemail due to at&t policies) but overall I like it.

  12. Let's hope he doesn't double down by sandbagger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I am sure that some PR dolt is telling Apple that they really get to the public to understand their message. However, it seems clear that the sustained and pretty narrow criticism that their non-phone hardware is crappy is not a marginal opinion. They simplified their line into a 'use old laptop parts for everything' which may make sense from the perspective of simplifying their parts bin but not for much else.

    This does mean they have a lot of options for correcting this tailspin. It may be selfish, but from my perspective I want a data truck. Give me a Mac Pro tower.

    --
    ---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
    1. Re:Let's hope he doesn't double down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The cheese grater towers were fantastic machines. I'm still running two myself, albeit with hacks so they'll run Mavericks.

    2. Re:Let's hope he doesn't double down by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 2

      The cheese grater towers were fantastic machines. I'm still running two myself, albeit with hacks so they'll run Mavericks.

      What "hacks" for Mavericks? I didn't think you needed any hacks for those until you got to El Capitan or Sierra.

    3. Re:Let's hope he doesn't double down by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 1

      The cheese grater towers were fantastic machines. I'm still running two myself, albeit with hacks so they'll run Mavericks.

      But ya know, I was just looking at the benchmarks for the late 2013 "Trashcan" Mac Pro last evening. It can truly run circles around the Cheese-Graters (as much as I like them).

    4. Re:Let's hope he doesn't double down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      To get it running on a 1,1 and a 2,1 you need you a modified boot.efi because they have 32 bit EFIs. https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1rsp3q/install_mavericks_on_older_mac_pro_11_21_20062007/

    5. Re:Let's hope he doesn't double down by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      All he needs is more courage. This time, remove the screen.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  13. Have WOZ come back and make good macs by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 3, Informative

    Have WOZ come back and make good macs that pro users, gamers, etc can use.

    1. Re:Have WOZ come back and make good macs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have WOZ come back and make good macs that pro users, gamers, etc can use.

      I know Woz, and personally begged him to do that. But he's having too much fun being on "permanent vacation", kind of like Paul Allen and Microsoft...

    2. Re:Have WOZ come back and make good macs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know Woz, and personally begged him to do that. But he's having too much fun running "failed companies", kind of like Paul Allen and Microsoft...

      Fixed that for you. Woz running apple would be a disaster.

    3. Re:Have WOZ come back and make good macs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm good with that, as long as he's not following the path of Nathan "I'm setting out to prove just how much of a jackass one human can possibly be" Myhrvold. But we definitely appreciate you asking him.

    4. Re:Have WOZ come back and make good macs by erapert · · Score: 1

      Woz was a great engineer, but Apple doesn't make their name through great engineering.
      Apple's products sell because they're sleek and stylish and handy and their competitors' products weren't.
      That's why and how Jobs brought success to Apple in the midst of a crowded field.
      Apple is losing revenue because the fad for their iconic industrial design is fading and also because their competitors are now putting out sleek and stylish designs of their own.
      Bringing back Woz won't change that. Woz would probably be happy with a PiTop as his laptop. Apple's customers wouldn't.

    5. Re:Have WOZ come back and make good macs by barc0001 · · Score: 1

      > Woz was a great engineer,

      Which highlights another tragedy of business. Behind every great company that has massive success and beloved products, you'll find a cadre of engineers that actually created the products who get paid relative peanuts compared to the suits.

    6. Re:Have WOZ come back and make good macs by erapert · · Score: 1

      Deciding whether to sail and where to sail to is important.
      If the ship doesn't sail or if it sails to a poor location at which the ship's company can't make money then why have the ship?
      Thus the captain's job is very important and he should be paid according to the profit that his merchant ship makes.
      The sailors are important as well-- they're the ones who literally sail the ship after all. But each individual sailor isn't critical-- there are many sailors who can all do the same job.
      But there's only one captain and very few people who know all the intricacies of navigation, trade values, tides, trade winds, etc.

      Don't be jealous because someone else makes more money than you. You sound like one of those feminists who got a degree in Women's Studies yet complains that there's a paucity of women in STEM. Why don't you go do what Tim Cook does?

    7. Re:Have WOZ come back and make good macs by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      Apple was also big in the media market for pro use and they had good workstations as well the cool looking imac's. But with the mac pro and other systems (mini) (imac getting very thin) they went away from at least having the big tower for the pro market. The imac is to thin and have to deal with laptop level cpu's and video cards.

      The mini went from having an quad core with 2 hdd's server system only has 1 HDD and dual core.

    8. Re:Have WOZ come back and make good macs by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Woz was a great engineer, but Apple doesn't make their name through great engineering.

      They did for quite a while, they brought in the whole team from Next who wrote solid software from the ground up. Every release was a clear improvement over its predecessor. Their actual engineering was good too: coming up with the unibody frame for the laptop, for example. The Macbook air was years ahead of the competition in form factor (although others are finally catching up).

      Back around 2010 I started noticing a decline in quality of the lower level APIs and such. I suppose a bunch of old Next guys were multi-millionaires at that point and decided to retire. The quality drop moved up to tools like Xcode, and now there are obvious problems on the front side.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    9. Re:Have WOZ come back and make good macs by barc0001 · · Score: 1

      Sailor? I'm talking about the guys who designed and built the ship. You can have the best captain and crew in the known universe but they're useless as tits on a mule if they're sitting on logs on a beach staring at an empty dock.

      > Don't be jealous because someone else makes more money than you. You sound like one of those feminists who got a degree in Women's Studies yet complains that there's a paucity of women in STEM.

      Awfully judge-y aren't we? You sound like one of those salestwats who used to sit in the cubicles across the hall whining about my group not working fast enough to push the next rev out before the end of quarter and you might miss your bonuses. While we worked 12-14 hour days for weeks on end and didn't get bonuses.

      > Why don't you go do what Tim Cook does?

      Hey, that's a great idea. Every single person in the world should go do what Tim Cook does and do nothing else. Surely that will never be a problem as all those products he sells just magically come into existence and replicate themselves, then transport themselves to packaging and to stores! Brilliant!

  14. pay cut or bonus/commission cut? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    seems he actually got a raise in pay but less bonuses for commission.

    1. Re:pay cut or bonus/commission cut? by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Precisely! His base salary went up by $1M, however, his net pay went down b'cos Apple stock went down. How is this 'Apple cutting his pay'?

      /. lying about what Apple did just b'cos they like Cook's activism

    2. Re:pay cut or bonus/commission cut? by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      /. editors making shit headlines is not very uncommon around here...

    3. Re:pay cut or bonus/commission cut? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      unixsc using a new nonstandard contraction of the word because for no good reason.

  15. That'll never work by vux984 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Getting a pay cut isn't going to motivate him. He clearly isn't bringing his A game... he needs to be incentivized; perhaps a more aggressive bonus structure, or more stock options? Maybe he needs a big raise? You need to do this to attract and retain talent! /sarcasm

    1. Re:That'll never work by avandesande · · Score: 1

      Does he have an 'a-game'? The guy strikes me as a very boring and uninspiring person.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
  16. I don't feel sorry for Tim by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These CEOs are incredibly rich. They get far more than they should. Since 1960, CEO pay has increased to be, on average, 300x the average salary man. It's not like TIm is hurting for cash anyway. What's a couple of million to a guy like him? He doesn't even have a biological family to worry about since he's a homosexual. Even if he did, if you cannot support a family even on 100,000 a year, you're doing it wrong.

    1. Re: I don't feel sorry for Tim by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      $100,000/year in California is diddly. Municipal bus drivers can make that much here.

    2. Re: I don't feel sorry for Tim by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yet the vast majority of Californians make it on 100k and they do OK. Ditto every other state in the union. 100,000 is doable in downtown NYC--with a family. I know people that do it. It's not what you make, it's how you use it.

    3. Re: I don't feel sorry for Tim by tsqr · · Score: 1

      $100,000/year in California is diddly. Municipal bus drivers can make that much here.

      Where are you getting your data? Median California household income in 2015 was $64,500. And according to this, the highest paid bus drivers in the state are in Santa Cruz, making $57,420.

  17. Thin hardware driving data through their cloud... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Until Apple stops to force into thinner hardware with reduced features and flexibility that only drives my data through its cloud I will not be buying new products.

    Not to mention the same effect Ive's inhuman design has forced on their UI... Basically, I'm going to wait for Cook and Ive to leave the company... I think the enter C-suite of aging white men needs to be retired and replaced with a globally diverse team and some inspired leadership to be truly innovative and courageous.

    Do not just release a watch with a faster processor and call it anything but incremental improvement.
    Do not just remove a highly functional legacy port from your hardware and call it anything but cost cutting.

    Continue to sell the luxury high end hardware, but also diversify into a branch of workhorse equipment for professionals that has the flexibility they demand.
    Make trinkets for the wealthy, but also come up with solutions that drive technological prosperity to the poor. Apple is still uniquely positioned, but lacks the inspiration to bring commendable change.

    And for goodness' sake, no one needs to make millions of dollars in annual salary or benefits - this ought to be a global crime against humanity!

  18. Apple? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is it all about... is it good, or is it whack?

  19. Salary to revenue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The company earned $215.6 billion, and he was only compensated $8.75 million.

    Put another way, he got $0.00875 billion to the $215.6 billion earned, or 0.004% of total revenue.

    If I look at my own salary compared to the revenues of the division where I work, I made 0.04% of total revenue. I don't have any direct reports; I am just an individual contributor. He has 66,000 people and countless stock holders.

    Am I an order of magnitude more important? Considering how he is responsible for all those people, I'd argue I wasn't.

    This really got the neurons firing.

    1. Re:Salary to revenue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Something that has been bugging me for a long time in discussion about executives is the use of the word "responsible". Responsibilities involve actual punishment for failing to perform them - either self-inflicted (if I fail to responsibly manage my finances, I will run out of money) or external (if I fail to deliver products on time, I will be fired and it will severely impact my standard of living).

      Tim Cook is "responsible", not responsible. His failures will lead to other people, Apple employees, getting laid off, and him getting a slight decrease in already enormous salary - more than a reasonable person can use. Even with New York cost of living, a year of Tim Cook's salary pays for a very nice apartment until you die - you never have to worry about being homeless again. Another year, you'll never be lacking in food, drink, entertainment or medical care.

      For Tim Cook to be actually responsible, his livelihood would have to be on the line, like it is for everyone else. Let's not misuse the important word to inflate the stakes of those jobs.

    2. Re:Salary to revenue by Bryan+Ischo · · Score: 1

      Pretty sure that Cook makes his real money on stock grants. His overall compensation is way, way, WAY more than 8 million per year.

  20. Thazz right Mr Cook! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you like that bitch? Suck it down you filthy Obamma supporter! That wss my trapcard, courtesy Michael "Michelle" Ovama. Now here comes the Trumpcard.

  21. I will happily buy a dozen if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... they add the headphone jack back where it belongs.

  22. Trust and responsibility by Comboman · · Score: 1

    Doctors are responsible for peoples' lives. If pay follows trust and responsibility, then doesn't it logically follow that they should make way more than CEOs? Then come fire, police, military (solders not generals). Then come the teachers we entrust with our children's education, farmers that grow our food, engineers and technicians that keep the country running, etc. Somewhere at the bottom of the trust and responsibility scale are the CEOs (after actors and athletes but before politicians).

    --
    Support Right To Repair Legislation.
    1. Re:Trust and responsibility by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It depends on how much the person in question would cost to replace. Many doctors would provide the same care (or better) than the one treating you, in all likelihood. It would be much harder to find someone that could replace Steve Jobs, in terms of profits for the company and value to shareholders.

  23. Damn by Lisandro · · Score: 1

    I hope he stays afloat.

  24. engineers salaries by akilone · · Score: 1

    What are salaries of Apple's engineers and software developers? What is order of magnitude of salaries of top engineers at Apple?

    1. Re:engineers salaries by imgod2u · · Score: 2

      According to Glassdoor:

      https://www.glassdoor.com/Sala...

      ~240k

      So Cook gets ~37X what a seasoned engineer gets. That's relatively low compared to most large companies. In fact, ~9M/year is damn low. Marissa did little for Yahoo other than spend other people's money to buy failed ideas and she still got roughly 20M/year.

  25. Tim Cook and Jony Ive should both be $0 by DougReed · · Score: 3, Informative

    Tim Cook is a stupid bean counter, and Jony Ive is destroying Apple with his ego. The lost their Consumer Reports recommendation for the first time. Their machines are becoming dreadful.

    1. Re:Tim Cook and Jony Ive should both be $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tim Cook is a stupid bean counter, and Jony Ive is destroying Apple with his ego. The lost their Consumer Reports recommendation for the first time. Their machines are becoming dreadful.

      Ive an ego?

    2. Re:Tim Cook and Jony Ive should both be $0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They need a hardware guy. A woz type that will fight for faster machines, more power, features techies actually like.

      At a minimum:
      macs must support memory upgrades, due to their expensive price point OR they must become much cheaper so they feel like throw away machines that they are.

      macs must have a fast processor. Intel has hurt them on this front and their quest for battery life pushes them into lowend ultrabook chips. Sell some macs with real CPUs. Even consider AMD ryzen if it's good for their higher end systems. Intel and apple need a kick in the butt on this.

      bring back proper OS X server and server hardware.

      Give us the famed mac we've all wanted, the upgradeable tower with drive bays and new video cards.

      go back to innovation, not dropping wifi products, killing headphone jacks and other nonsense. If you can't innovate, use stock parts at least (USB 3.1 on iphone, standard nvme drives in macs, etc)

  26. Adhost interview by theendlessnow · · Score: 1

    Reporter: We caught up briefly with Tim as he getting off a crowded transit bus. We asked, "Now that you've lot all that money, what adjustments are you going to have to make?"

    Tim: "Obviously we're eating out less, driving less, more walking, fewer movies. On the plus side, we're enjoying more interaction with our neighbors at outdoor barbeques and spaghetti nights. Community is the key."

  27. Sound and fury by sjbe · · Score: 1

    Have you forgotten the courageous removal of the mini-headphone jack?

    No but I think that is more sound and fury than an actual problem for most people. Some people care about it a lot. Most don't really give a shit. Apple is selling tons of iPhone 7 units so the evidence is clear that it isn't a deal breaker for plenty of folks. No, the main reason people haven't upgrades is because the iPhone 7 is barely different from the 6. I've owned and used both so I know first hand. The headphone jack thing just isn't that big of a real world issue.

    Gone are the days when the left and right speaker are in perfect sync. Gone are the days when your audio and video were in sync.

    I happen to own an iPhone 7 and I've experienced none of what you describe. My earphones work just as well as they ever did even on the rare occasion when I have to use a dongle to attach them. Most of the time I use bluetooth and it works just fine. Nothing amazing but fine. If the headphone jack is super important to you there are plenty of other very good options out there.

    Pricy, laggy, hit or miss pressure sensitivity, noticeable parallax, slippery to hold and doesn't even have an eraser.

    Haven't used the Apple Pencil enough to know much about its hardware performance but I do know that the big problem with it is that rather little software supports it in any useful way except for a few bits of mostly primitive drawing software. I haven't seen any decent note taking software for the iPad yet and believe me I've looked. And the fact that the iPad doesn't have a storage slot for it is to my mind unforgivable. To have a stylus you really have to get software to utilize it as something more than a fine tipped finger and Apple hasn't bothered with that yet.

    1. Re:Sound and fury by chipschap · · Score: 1

      Apple is selling tons of iPhone 7 units

      Apple would sell tons of iPhone x units even if they were just an empty shell, as long as they were deemed "super cool" by the Apple crowd.

      And actually, this is not so much a criticism as it is a salute to Apple marketing. They have built a base of incredibly loyal fans who will buy any Apple product at any price. This may well be unique in the history of business.

  28. Soldered Salary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not news until he gets the salary soldered to his ***.

  29. 4% decline in sales? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is the effect of them neglecting their impoverished desktops and laptops line-ups. I hate them for having me to use 6.5 year old MBP laptop with no suitable PC/Win equivalent in the last few years. I want Apple power laptop, not a shiny-encrusted chicken shit tablet calculator worth €3333.

  30. you naive fool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It most certainly does. Many things are finite, and person B wont get one if person A gets paid more and buys it first. Why doesn't everyone live in Manhattan? Just make the pie bigger...

  31. Modest and unintersting improvements by sjbe · · Score: 1

    Sure, the iPhone 7 _case_ is barely different from the iPhone 6. And yes, there is no reason to upgrade... unless you want a much better camera, faster CPU, faster Touch ID, force touch, water resistance...

    I've owned both the 6 and the 7. The camera in the 7 is a modest improvement - certainly nothing world changing. The phone isn't notably faster nor is the touch ID. The force touch is one of those "features" that seems nifty but rarely gets used in practice. The water resistance is nice but it wasn't like I made a habit of dunking my 6. Sorry my friend but all the improvements in the 7 are modest and incremental. If you have a 6 already I cannot in good faith recommend upgrading for any practical reason. The 7 is nice but not really good enough to justify a multi-hundred dollar upgrade from the 6 unless you are an Apple fanboi who cannot bear to be without the latest and greatest.

    I like Apple Pay a lot but it hasn't exactly taken the world by storm and Apple doesn't seem to be working too hard to promote it. Standard procedure for them since Jobs died. Introduce something kind of neat and then mostly ignore it for several years. Hell the apps written by Apple on my iPhone are barely improved from the first version I bought. They keep making changes to the interface, usually resulting in it being more annoying to use than before but with little to no extra functionality.

    They mostly ignored the _desktop_ Mac line for several years now, but the MacBook (introduced last year) was a very significant change as was the MacBook Pro introduced this year.

    There hasn't been a substantial *improvement* in the MacBook for several years. The few upgrades have been barely noteworthy and the latest MacBook Pro has some very questionable design decisions. Wow, USB-C and a touchbar nobody asked for or cares about. Apple only gets about 15% of their revenue from PCs these days so they clearly have their management attention elsewhere. Their laptops are nice but you get the feeling they could be a lot better. I haven't seen an update to OS X that really made me notice it in years. Differences between Sierra and El Capitan? Couldn't tell you and I use a Mac almost daily at home. None of the "improvements" really affect my daily use one bit.

    They haven't done anything particular novel or interesting in the iPad line... except for the iPad Pro.

    [sarcasm]Ooh, a bigger screen, a shitty keyboard and a stylus that is nearly useless. What groundbreaking technology... [/sarcasm]

    They haven't done anything interesting with AppleTV... except release a brand new Apple TV with an app store just over a year ago.

    Which is more or less a non-upgrade. I own the previous AppleTV and my in-laws own the current one. There is nothing the current one does that makes me want to upgrade. Apps? What app do I need on AppleTV that would make me want to buy it? I sure haven't seen one. The new remote is annoying to use and it doesn't give me any special capabilities I can't live without. AppleTV is a toy - nothing more.

    1. Re:Modest and unintersting improvements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Somehow, I get the feeling that if they'd released anti-gravity boots and a cure for cancer you'd still be saying "nobody wants that", "that sucks", and "that isn't innovative like a Surface".

    2. Re:Modest and unintersting improvements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Standard procedure for them since Jobs died. Introduce something kind of neat and then mostly ignore it for several years.

      Eh, that was standard procedure when Jobs was around, too. Look at iLife and iWork.

      • iPhoto - introduced in 2002, a flurry of major feature upgrades over the next few years, then languished for several more years until finally being EOL'ed in 2014 (post Jobs, but it was a dead end before he died). And of course for pro/hobbyist photographers, same thing with Aperture.
      • iTunes has suffered mostly the same fate. It was damn useful as a music library manager in 2003, and hasn't really changed in that regard since. What has changed is crappier and crappier interfaces each year, and the forcing of shitty Apple Music down our throats. If it weren't for Apple Music and the online music store, I'm sure iTunes would have been completely abandoned long ago.
      • iMovie - awesome, best in class consumer video editing for FREE (Mac sold separately). Got fewer and fewer updates over the years, then a brand new, rewritten version came out in 2007. It was super shitty, supposedly more newbie-friendly, but removed a lot of control and was completely unintelligible to anyone who has ever edited a video before. But Apple was excited about it, so they worked hard and made a few major updates... then nothing. A 3-year gap in updates between 2010 and 2013, and nothing of substance since then anyway.
      • GarageBand - super exciting, everyone with a little musical background can have a basic home recording setup for FREE. Big-name artists sold "lessons" through the software. A few major updates and then nothing.
      • iDVD - awesome DVD authoring software, ties directly into iMovie. No updates, eventually time to support Blu-Ray but that's a "bag of hurt" so just EOL'ed.
      • All of iWork. Nobody expected it to replace Microsoft Office, but it followed the same pattern. No substantive updates after the first few major versions. Features were actually taken away and some still haven't been added back.
      • ITools - no, .Mac - no, MobileMe - no, iCloud. All "BIG EXCITEMENT!!!" announcements under Jobs, then never developed into something good. iCloud has stuck around and been improved post-Jobs, but only out of the necessity of providing a cloud service in this day & age. Apple still knows shit about good cloud services.

      And that's just what I can think of on the software side during Jobs' tenure. Obviously now there's less and less focus on the Mac, period, both software and hardware.

      While it has a lot to do with Apple's culture and leadership, I wonder if it also has to do with the company's organization. I saw an article recently claiming that their organization is unusual of a company of their size, and maybe they've outgrown it. Something about they don't have separate macOS and iOS divisions, so much as software and hardware divisions. So when iOS takes over focus, everyone is shifted on to that, and macOS is left with a skeleton crew for maintenance. That would explain all of the examples above - once leaderhip gets bored with a product, they disband the team and only leave a couple of low level engineers to make minor fixes. They have the cash to hire legions of more engineers, to have full teams for all products, but they don't want to do it. I understand that throwing more engineers at a problem doesn't always work (can't use 9 women to make a baby in a month and all that), and it necessitates more management overhead to coordinate between teams, but there's a lot of stuff the Apple could be doing in parallel, but they refuse. It's like if something isn't being directly thought about by the executive team, nobody on the company is allowed to work on it.

    3. Re:Modest and unintersting improvements by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      While it has a lot to do with Apple's culture and leadership, I wonder if it also has to do with the company's organization. I saw an article recently claiming that their organization is unusual of a company of their size, and maybe they've outgrown it. Something about they don't have separate macOS and iOS divisions, so much as software and hardware divisions. So when iOS takes over focus, everyone is shifted on to that, and macOS is left with a skeleton crew for maintenance.

      Actually, Apple has teams that work on specific technology areas. So there's a team that works on, for example, kernel networking, and within that area, there are folks who focus on iOS-specific stuff, folks who focus on Mac-specific stuff, and a bunch of generalists who work on whatever needs to be improved at that particular moment. At no point is there just a "skeleton crew" working on OS X, because most people are working on code that impacts both platforms equally. The only real exceptions are folks working on applications (platform-specific), Springboard (iOS only), Dock (OS X only), AppKit, UIKit, and a few other miscellaneous pieces. And those folks aren't really interchangeable, so I don't think they borrow any of them from one side of the organization to beef up the other side.

      They have the cash to hire legions of more engineers, to have full teams for all products, but they don't want to do it.

      Actually, Apple hiring legions of engineers is part of the problem. If you've looked at Apple's hiring numbers, they're growing at a crazy rate, and have been ever since the iPhone came out. The result is that there's too much new blood who don't understand why things were done the way they were done, and whose inclination is to do something new and different because it is new and different, rather than because it is better.

      The result is the new iMovie, an endless string of major iTunes UI redesigns, the death of Aperture in favor of the Photos app, the death of FCP in favor of FCP X, the flat icon abomination, the Helvetica Neue abomination, and a developer docs website that does everything in its power to discourage actual development.

      Trust me, hiring more people isn't the answer. It's the problem. Hiring fewer, better people with more experience is the answer.

      It's like if something isn't being directly thought about by the executive team, nobody on the company is allowed to work on it.

      Actually, the current iMovie that you complained about was, IIRC, originally just such a skunkworks project, and then somebody liked it so much that they wanted everybody to use it. I'm sure such things still happen all the time at Apple. I'm not so sure that they don't get released as finished products far more often than they should, however.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  32. Re:This would never happen under Steve JObs by erapert · · Score: 0

    Tell us more about how much better a person you are than Tim Cook.

  33. Apple needs a CEO with vision by LeftCoastThinker · · Score: 2

    Fire his ass and get a leader with vision. The iPhone is slumped because there is nothing to drive sales. NO ONE WANTS A THIN PHONE if it means poor battery life and a weak frame that can bend during normal use. Give me more features like an IR camera, night vision camera, an internal LED projector, plug in keyboard and screen for desktop functionality, stereoscopic cameras for 3D pictures, a waterproof design, a much tougher screen (this is not even that hard, you basically just make your screen plastic with a top replaceable layer. When the layer gets scratched, you replace it. The plastic screen will not shatter, and the top layer protects the main screen from scratches.)

    There is still a lot of potential for smart phones; Apple used to be innovating, now they are coasting on their trendy consumer base, but that will push them back to a 5% market share.

    --
    If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
    1. Re:Apple needs a CEO with vision by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

      Apple hasn't innovated in years. Tim Cook is a coattail CEO. Once sales slump enough investors will oust him.

    2. Re:Apple needs a CEO with vision by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Once sales slump enough investors will oust him.

      That doesn't usually happen. Maybe getting caught with gay porn on his iphone.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  34. Re:This would never happen under Steve JObs by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 0

    Seriously, anybody is a better person than Tim Cook. Throwing a hissy fit about being charged with under paying taxes in Ireland and threatening to move jobs out of Ireland - what jobs - if he has to pay more taxes. Yeah real humanitarian....moron.

  35. No big deal by macdaddy357 · · Score: 1

    Now, instead of getting more in a year than he could spend it 10 lifetimes, he got more than he could spend in 9 lifetimes.

    --
    How ya like dat?
  36. Job's Genius [Re:But why?] by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    Do you truly, in the deepest of your heart, believe that [Steve Jobs] accomplished that alone?

    Jobs had an uncanny ability to coordinate the intersection of new technology, manufacturability, and consumer taste. He also knew to spot a zig when others were zagging.

    He made Woz's Apple II marketable, tamed GUI's when Xerox Star failed, helped start Pixar when the financial failure of Tron spooked the rest of the CGI market, brought out cool desktop computer designs when the rest of the industry was bland beige or Sony black, simplified Apple's product line, and made the brave choice of tossing the physical phone keyboard for an all-screen design despite Blackberry's success. Other co's would have me-too'd on the Blackberry: playing it safe by cloning the design of the top competitor.

    There are many interesting ideas floating around, but to package them in a way that consumers can digest, and manufacture them at a reasonable cost requires a multidisciplinary approach, and guts. Few people have the skill or knowledge to balance all three.

    Jobs may have had the equivalent of Google Glass useful, marketable, and affordable by now.

  37. Two Types of Apple CEO by rlp · · Score: 1

    Historically there's been two types of Apple CEO - Steve Jobs and everyone else. Tim Cook is definitely in the latter category.

    Jobs believed in delighting the customer ('insanely great" products). He produced products for the professional (developer and graphic arts) markets, not because they were immensely profitable, but because he realized these people led by example and influenced their companies and others to buy.

    Tim Cook had the "courage" to remove a headphone jack. Apple will coast on their cash reserves for a long while, but they need another visionary leader.

    --
    [Insert pithy quote here]
  38. Agree with your sentiment, but not your assertions by Brannon · · Score: 2

    > NO ONE WANTS A THIN PHONE

    hundreds of millions of people want a thin phone

    > if it means poor battery life

    the iPhone doesn't have poor battery life, it has really good battery life for the usage patters of the vast majority of customers

    > and a weak frame that can bend during normal use

    This is not a real problem.

    ---

    I agree that Apple needs to give people better reasons to upgrade their phone, they're clearly out of ideas and are squarely into incrementalism.

  39. That poor guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now he only makes 1/3 of my annual salary every 8 hours. How embarrassing for him.

  40. Missed A Few by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While being paid $1 per year...

    Strategy #1 The CEO borrows against the stock and the loans are untaxed or repaid outside of the US. When the CEO dies the value of the stock is passed on to the children untaxed and the loan can be repaid. The children become very wealthy.

    Strategy #2 Property can be traded for similar valued property and both can be sold without worrying about appreciation. The CEO buys and sells large swaths of land.

    Strategy #3 Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich. Look it up.

    All of this is legal. Taxes are for the unwashed masses.

  41. Projections do not equal reality. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FTS
    >revenue and profit goals

    OK, so the PROJECTION was $X and the REALITY was $X. Ummm, so how can you MAKE people buy things? I know sales is a lubricated manner of selling things people may not otherwise buy, (as opposed to shelf items just sitting around at the groceries for example). But come on,,, so people are less receptive this year, that is who's fault & how?

    Fantasies I tell ya.

  42. Let them slowly die, please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can we please just let them slowly die off from their own incompetence? Please?

  43. Our election is a prime example. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Look at all the people trying to insist Trump is an idiot, in spite of having gotten himself elected to the highest office in the land.

    Same thing: Common fools love to believe they're smart and capable.

    These folks wouldn't last five minutes in a presidential debate. And they wouldn't last a day as a CEO of a Fortune 500.

    And that's why Tim Cook and the rest get paid millions. Because no, you can't take your average fuck and have them do a capable job.

  44. Does anyone feel bad? Even him? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously, he his children and grandchildren will never want for anything. He could work for free for years. Not like his is going to be replaced by a contract worker anytime soon.

  45. accountable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So why aren't any bank CEO's in jail? Or any CEO's for that matter.

  46. Oh nooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He made 8.3 million instead of 8.8 million? He wont be able to afford his own island country untill next week.
    All this guy has done is change around some more backassward proprietary bullshit to sell more crap to dumb people and its starting to become far too obvious.

  47. Entitlement by kimvette · · Score: 1

    The wealthy have an interesting sense of entitlement; they accuse the poor of having an "entitlemernt" mentality but they are projecting upon the poor.

    Apple is a good example of this.
    So are the music and film industries.

    How?

    Apple's revenue decreased slightly, but is still close to a quarter of a trillion dollars, eclipsing the revenue of its closest competitors combined. And yet, they're still achieving astounding numbers in a supersaturated market with intense competition. They've beating everyone else by a wide margin, and the board isn't happy with that. They aren't happy that Apple is maintaining its lead and tremendously profitable numbers, and they're punishing Cook for results that anyone else can only dream of.

    That is entitlement right there; when obscene profits aren't enough, or they consider a slight decline in sales while maintaining leadership and near-record-breaking profits to be a loss.

    --
    The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50