The article hits on a key point, though. Consider that during Jobs life he saw giants like AT&T and IBM falter, and other giants like Microsoft rise from nothing, and then falter. He used to tell a story about how they were 1 week from defaulting on payroll when he returned in 1997. I think he certainly wanted to keep the money for a "rainy day" scenario.
Which brings me to the most interesting thing that Apple could purchase: they could afford to pay an average salary of $300,000/yr to every one of their employees for 5 years with absolutely no revenue, and they still wouldn't exhaust their bank vault. If it were up to me, I would say they should start something equivalent to Bell Labs or PARC, but they won't. To do so would be antithetical to the very character of the company. In other words, quite the bind to be in...
Apple is a publically held company. Disposing of profits by giving it all to employees would be a wonderful way to create an instant shareholder lawsuit.
The cash held by Apple is built in to its share price. If a stock holder wants some of that all they have to do is sell some shares. Undoubtably there are some tax considerations regarding capital gains vs. dividends but the fact remains that if Apple distributed a significant amount of its cash to shareholders, then the share price would inevitably drop by the same amount.
The article hits on a key point, though. Consider that during Jobs life he saw giants like AT&T and IBM falter, and other giants like Microsoft rise from nothing, and then falter. He used to tell a story about how they were 1 week from defaulting on payroll when he returned in 1997. I think he certainly wanted to keep the money for a "rainy day" scenario.
Which brings me to the most interesting thing that Apple could purchase: they could afford to pay an average salary of $300,000/yr to every one of their employees for 5 years with absolutely no revenue, and they still wouldn't exhaust their bank vault. If it were up to me, I would say they should start something equivalent to Bell Labs or PARC, but they won't. To do so would be antithetical to the very character of the company. In other words, quite the bind to be in...