Apple CEO Tim Cook earned $10.3M in 2015, Angela Ahrendts highest paid exec

AppleInsider · January 6, 2016 11:29PM

Executive salaries are among the tastier tidbits in Apple's annual proxy statement, and this year's filing revealed CEO Tim Cook to have received $10.3M in cash and stock for 2015, while SVP of retail Angela Ahrendts was paid $25.8 million.

Cook's compensation is actually up from 2014, when the Apple chief was paid $9.2 million in salary and stock incentives. For 2015, Cook's salary was bumped to $2 million, according to Apple's 2016 proxy statement.

In addition to his yearly wages, Cook currently owns $57.7 million in stock and restricted stock units currently worth about $479 million. The performance-based RSUs are set to vest in incremental installments from August 2015 to August 2021.

Ahrendts led all reporting Apple executives with a $1 million base salary, $20 million in stock, $4 million stock incentive and relocation expenses in the amount of $474,981, among other considerations. The final tally is down from Ahrendts' massive 2014 compensation of $73.4 million, paid out to woo her away from Burberry.

Apple's other reporting execs each earned $1 million in base salary and $20 million in stock awards. CFO Luca Maestri took home $25.3 million, SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue netted$25.1 million, while SVP of Hardware Engineering Dan Riccio and General Counsel Bruce Sewell were paid an identical $25 million.

dickprinter · January 6, 2016 11:40PM

And I lost money on AAPL.

/s

mac_128 · January 6, 2016 11:45PM

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!

rogifan_old · January 6, 2016 11:48PM

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.

edited January 2016

ac1234 · January 6, 2016 11:58PM

mac_128 said:

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!

You have to be kidding - a waaaaaay overpaid empty skirt.

edited January 2016

b1ng0 · January 7, 2016 12:08AM

rogifan_old said:

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.

Because this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2015/03/02/why-apple-doesnt-report-jony-ives-compensation/

512ke · January 7, 2016 12:23AM

As a longtime user of Apple products, I think they deserve it. As an Apple shareholder... meh.

fallenjt · January 7, 2016 12:28AM

Give Sog35 some he'll whine more until AAPL is back to $130.

rogifan_old · January 7, 2016 12:31AM

b1ng0 said:

rogifan_old said:

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.

Because this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2015/03/02/why-apple-doesnt-report-jony-ives-compensation/

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.

prof_peabody · January 7, 2016 12:35AM

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.

spamsandwich · January 7, 2016 12:52AM

rogifan_old said:

b1ng0 said:

Because this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2015/03/02/why-apple-doesnt-report-jony-ives-compensation/

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.

If he's considered a "permanent consultant" (with limitless godlike powers) instead of an officer, that might do it.

rogifan_old · January 7, 2016 1:24AM

SpamSandwich said:

rogifan_old said:

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.

If he's considered a "permanent consultant" (with limitless godlike powers) instead of an officer, that might do it.

Makes me wonder if that's how they're treating Bob Mansfield. As far as we know he's still working for the company.

mjtomlin · January 7, 2016 2:22AM

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?

spamsandwich · January 7, 2016 2:32AM

mjtomlin said:

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?

People who own a lot of AAPL stock tend to be interested in the stock price.

mjtomlin · January 7, 2016 2:44AM

SpamSandwich said:

mjtomlin said:

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?

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.

radarthekat · January 7, 2016 3:07AM

Prof_Peabody said:

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?

edited January 2016

braderunner · January 7, 2016 3:35AM

mac_128 said:

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!

I hope you're being sarcastic.

bravadu · January 7, 2016 4:49AM

I found the title kinda misleading. 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

edited January 2016

aaronj · January 7, 2016 4:54AM

Angela made as much last year as Miguel Cabrera. Wow.

Anyways, I couldn't care less about Apple executive compensation. It's nothing compared to what the company pulls in in revenues. It's irrelevant. Good for Angela. I wish I made that much last year. Heh.

bravadu · January 7, 2016 5:02AM

rogifan_old said:

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

edited January 2016

rogifan_old · January 7, 2016 5:30AM

bravadu said:

rogifan_old said:

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

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 CEO Tim Cook earned $10.3M in 2015, Angela Ahrendts highest paid exec

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