Honestly I'd take Craig over Eddy Cue any day of the week. IMO Cue is the weakest link on the executive team.
Eddy Cue is Apple's dealmaker while Craig works in house. I would say that both are pretty important. You can credit Eddy with Apple's first iPhone deal with AT&T for example. As well as the iBooks and Apple Music deals
Yeah, but he still doesn't know the secret handshake!
Typical AAPL people here... $234 Billion in revenue in Fiscal 2015, a $50 Billion gain in a single year... They EARNED it. Screw what the stock value is, what the hell does that have to do with an employee compensation?
A lot, since a large portion of executive pay is in stocks. There's some relation and the level of their compensation in part is directly tied to the value of the stock, thus their performance is correlated to the stock price.
Eddy Cue is Apple's dealmaker while Craig works in house. I would say that both are pretty important. You can credit Eddy with Apple's first iPhone deal with AT&T for example. As well as the iBooks and Apple Music deals
What has Cue done recently? Apple's cloud services need a ton of work, we have yet to see anything good come from the $3B Beats acquisition, Apple Music is still not that great, Wall Street doesn't give a shit about Apple Pay (that announcement with China Union pay did nothing for the stock), no streaming TV service and App Store was recently given to Phil Schiller. In the last 4 years or so I can't think of one thing out of Eddy Cue's org that could be considered best in class.
Incidentally, there was yet another market-halting crash of Chinese stocks over there today, which will probably cause another sizable sell off in US markets tomorrow. Looks like the dominoes are falling. I expect to hear the news that Sog jumped head first out of a moving car sometime tomorrow.
So basically he's paid a lot of money and Apple doesn't want to disclose it. Still doesn't explain how they get away with it, especially if he's paid more than others, though of course we don't know if that's the case.
It did explain how they "get away" with it. You have to report the top CEO, CFO and then ( an arbitrary defined) 3 executives - not the highest paid employees.
Seems like a definite misnomer to say he "earned" it. More accurate would be just to say that "this is what he is/was paid."
Executive salaries are typically affected by many factors, but almost none of them relate to the person's actual, material contributions to the company. A ditch digger "earns" their wages, an executive ... not so much.
I have this simple notion of how to explain employee compensation. People are generally paid according to the impact any one decision or action they take can have on the overall company. A line worker has very little impact as an individual, and if he does come up with some important impactful idea, typically it's his path to promotion. Like the proverbial CEO who started out in the mailroom. Combine this notion with market forces, which implies how easily any given employee can be replaced, and you start to get a sense of why management and corporate leaders are paid out of context of merely the calories they burn during working hours. If I, as VP of Product Development (my last role during my working career) dream up a new product that expands the company's addressable market by 50%, how much is that one idea worth? Should I get compensated no more than each of the 20 software engineers who implement my detailed designs that bring that new product into existence? How much would the company lose if any one of the software developers decided to take his skills elsewhere? How much if I decided to take my groundbreaking ideas elsewhere?
This would be true in the fantasy world where
1) VPs of product development actually came up with "great ideas". In tech companies it's more often than not low level employees. 2) great ideas were worth piss. Rather than the implementation.
Hey if you were VP of product at Boeing your "great idea" every year could be faster more efficient planes and let the technical drones work it out.
Well so much for the "glass ceiling" at Apple. And she definitely earned her keep in 2015. Those in store product launches were an awesome spectacle to behold!
As I said in another thread, I noticed in the proxy statement Jony Ive's promotion still doesn't require him to be a named officer of the company or have his salary reported. He's never had to publicly report his salary. I's be curious to know how Apple gets around that. Even if he has very few if any direct reports there's no way Apple can claim his position doesn't have a material impact on the company.
Edit: interesting too that Jeff Williams as COO isn't on this list. When Steve Jobs was CEO Tim Cook's salary was reported every year. Also looking back at previous proxy statements the only named executive officer that hasn't had salary info reported is Craig Federighi. I find that a bit interesting considering he's the top software guy at Apple. Honestly I'd take Craig over Eddy Cue any day of the week. IMO Cue is the weakest link on the executive team.
Craig over Eddy anytime...
As for Ive.. very curious!
I found the title kinda misleading and clickbaitey. After reading that and the first few paragraphs, I was under the impression that she was being paid significantly more than everyone else, including Cook.
And then the 4th paragraph says that the SVPs were all being paid about the same amount and that her pay was only about 2-3% more than the other SVPs
So basically he's paid a lot of money and Apple doesn't want to disclose it. Still doesn't explain how they get away with it, especially if he's paid more than others, though of course we don't know if that's the case.
It did explain how they "get away" with it. You have to report the top CEO, CFO and then ( an arbitrary defined) 3 executives - not the highest paid employees.
OK I guess I missed that part. But I still don't get the whole secrecy angle. I can't imagine his comp and stock awards are different than any of the other execs. Maybe because he oversaw a very small team and now may not even have any direct reports he doesn't need to be a named officer of the company and thus Apple wouldn't have to report his salary. I'm surprised Jeff Williams wasn't listed as he's COO. In most companies the COO is number 2 in command.
It did explain how they "get away" with it. You have to report the top CEO, CFO and then ( an arbitrary defined) 3 executives - not the highest paid employees.
OK I guess I missed that part. But I still don't get the whole secrecy angle. I can't imagine his comp and stock awards are different than any of the other execs. Maybe because he oversaw a very small team and now may not even have any direct reports he doesn't need to be a named officer of the company and thus Apple wouldn't have to report his salary. I'm surprised Jeff Williams wasn't listed as he's COO. In most companies the COO is number 2 in command.
Well they don't have to report any more than 5 ( and they only report 6) executives. Of course you can still monitor sales of stocks via SEC declarations..
As per the link it's CFO, CEO and your next 3 top executives. I bet these are the best paid, actually, if they wanted to hide "over-comensation" they could have hidden Angela.
People who own a lot of AAPL stock tend to be interested in the stock price.
Of course they do! But so what? How does that apply within the context of this subject? Employee compensation should be based on the company's financial performance. Not Wall Street's delusional valuation of a company.
This may come as news to you, but a CEO works primarily for shareholders in the Anglo-American system of governance. He is our employee. His compensation is therefore -- apart from some fixed base -- a function of the value he creates for people like me. You may or may not like it, but that's the nature of the beast. This is the essence of the link between pay and 'performance' for most CEOs in countries like the US.
Now, if Cook & Co paid me all those mega-billions in earnings as, say, a special dividend, I'd say double his salary. Triple it. But right now all I have is a claim on it, capitalized in the stock price.
So it's perfectly legitimate to question the salary. Not one shareholder begrudged his $400M in compensation a few years ago because, at that time, he had created value. He earned every penny of that $400M. This year, he has, in objective terms, destroyed value. He doesn't get to have it both ways.
The other thing about executive compensation being tied to stock is the original gift of stock isn't related to performance. If every executive got options priced at the date of their hire ( and subsequently their review) the compensation from options would in fact match the contribution of the executive team in that time. Restricted Stock already includes value created by previous employees (Like the original iPhone team.)
Of course they do! But so what? How does that apply within the context of this subject? Employee compensation should be based on the company's financial performance. Not Wall Street's delusional valuation of a company.
This may come as news to you, but a CEO works primarily for shareholders in the Anglo-American system of governance. He is our employee. His compensation is therefore -- apart from some fixed base -- a function of the value he creates for people like me. You may or may not like it, but that's the nature of the beast. This is the essence of the link between pay and 'performance' for most CEOs in countries like the US.
Now, if Cook & Co paid me all those mega-billions in earnings as, say, a special dividend, I'd say double his salary. Triple it. But right now all I have is a claim on it, capitalized in the stock price.
So it's perfectly legitimate to question the salary. Not one shareholder begrudged his $400M in compensation a few years ago because, at that time, he had created value. He earned every penny of that $400M. This year, he has, in objective terms, destroyed value. He doesn't get to have it both ways.
It's time you learn what they're currently teaching in business schools NOW; that view is faling more and more out of favor.
So, a company that had a boost of all metrics including profits to the biggest ever goibling 95% of profits in every sector they're in has "destroyed" value... Wow, just wow. Not only that, they created a 6-7B business in a brand new wildly growing area they will likely dominate for some time.
Stock price is basically a secondary indicator, the one where the officers have the least impact
Your view of what's the main goal of the officers has been determined to constantly lead to bad decisions for the future of a company.
Wow. I thought executive compensation is based on stock performance. Can't believe the stock is at $97 right now. So basically Apple is using its cash to buy back stock and then give it to their executives. Sounds like a good plan when the stock is healthy. But now?
Angela has turned Apple into a Burberry elite brand. The watch and how it was marketed and pushed is a good example. Releasing it to "celebrities" like Kanye, Kim, etc before launch to sell us on the "value and beauty" of the product over true practicality and function. I'd like to see what the margin is on luxury watch bands alone. I liked Steve Jobs because the products were more about function, ease of use, and beautiful simplistic design. I think Steve would've kicked back on the celebrity marketing approach and opted to let a good device sell itself.
Eddy Cue is Apple's dealmaker while Craig works in house. I would say that both are pretty important. You can credit Eddy with Apple's first iPhone deal with AT&T for example. As well as the iBooks and Apple Music deals
What has Cue done recently? Apple's cloud services need a ton of work, we have yet to see anything good come from the $3B Beats acquisition, Apple Music is still not that great, Wall Street doesn't give a shit about Apple Pay (that announcement with China Union pay did nothing for the stock), no streaming TV service and App Store was recently given to Phil Schiller. In the last 4 years or so I can't think of one thing out of Eddy Cue's org that could be considered best in class.
Apple Music is great by me Apple Pay is awesome Beats is doing great
...and you have the hubris to presume that because YOU don't know what's brewing behind closed doors, nothing must be. that's nonsense. the most successful tech company in human history wouldn't pay him 25 million to be a loser. that's just you trying to bring titans of industry down to our level.
Wow. I thought executive compensation is based on stock performance. Can't believe the stock is at $97 right now. So basically Apple is using its cash to buy back stock and then give it to their executives. Sounds like a good plan when the stock is healthy. But now?
rewarding execs based on stock price would be a recipe for disaster. no, profit (via delighting the customer) is the correct way.
Comments
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/business/china-market-trading-halt-1.3392835
Personally, my portfolio has been getting killed with all of this negative action, but I'll take Warren Buffet's advice should the massacre continue.
1) VPs of product development actually came up with "great ideas". In tech companies it's more often than not low level employees.
2) great ideas were worth piss. Rather than the implementation.
Hey if you were VP of product at Boeing your "great idea" every year could be faster more efficient planes and let the technical drones work it out.
OK I guess I missed that part. But I still don't get the whole secrecy angle. I can't imagine his comp and stock awards are different than any of the other execs. Maybe because he oversaw a very small team and now may not even have any direct reports he doesn't need to be a named officer of the company and thus Apple wouldn't have to report his salary. I'm surprised Jeff Williams wasn't listed as he's COO. In most companies the COO is number 2 in command.
As per the link it's CFO, CEO and your next 3 top executives. I bet these are the best paid, actually, if they wanted to hide "over-comensation" they could have hidden Angela.
Now, if Cook & Co paid me all those mega-billions in earnings as, say, a special dividend, I'd say double his salary. Triple it. But right now all I have is a claim on it, capitalized in the stock price.
So it's perfectly legitimate to question the salary. Not one shareholder begrudged his $400M in compensation a few years ago because, at that time, he had created value. He earned every penny of that $400M. This year, he has, in objective terms, destroyed value. He doesn't get to have it both ways.
The other thing about executive compensation being tied to stock is the original gift of stock isn't related to performance. If every executive got options priced at the date of their hire ( and subsequently their review) the compensation from options would in fact match the contribution of the executive team in that time. Restricted Stock already includes value created by previous employees (Like the original iPhone team.)
So, a company that had a boost of all metrics including profits to the biggest ever goibling 95% of profits in every sector they're in has "destroyed" value... Wow, just wow.
Not only that, they created a 6-7B business in a brand new wildly growing area they will likely dominate for some time.
Stock price is basically a secondary indicator, the one where the officers have the least impact
Your view of what's the main goal of the officers has been determined to constantly lead to bad decisions for the future of a company.
Apple Pay is awesome
Beats is doing great
...and you have the hubris to presume that because YOU don't know what's brewing behind closed doors, nothing must be. that's nonsense. the most successful tech company in human history wouldn't pay him 25 million to be a loser. that's just you trying to bring titans of industry down to our level.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/28/maximizing-shareholder-value-the-dumbest-idea-in-the-world/