
Apple's Tim Cook Voluntarily Forgoes $75 Million Payout - JumpCrisscross
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/05/25/apples-tim-cook-voluntarily-forgoes-75-million-payout/
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patio11
It's probably actually higher, since Apple has so much cash lying around. They
have no reasonable prospect of spending it and they're getting to the point
where no acquisitions that make sense would dent the horde. (I mean, they
could buy a carrier, but why buy the cow if you already get all of the profits
of milking it for free.)

This suggests that, like MSFT before them, they'll eventually raise dividends.

</amateurish speculation>

~~~
wh-uws
I like it though (despite it being "amateurish speculation").

Allow me to add my own. I would love to see them purchase a carrier though.

Imagine it. How much better would things get if Apple owned the towers and
spectrum too.

They've got more hardware and software talent in units as small as 5 or 10
then some of those companies have in their entire workforce.

And for all the ridiculousness they've put us all through over the years I
would love to seen them squirm as they try to figure out how they are going to
compete with Apple.

~~~
tptacek
The thing people don't seem to get about buying a carrier is that you can't
just add "Wireless Carrier" to your inventory, dual-wield it, and collect the
stats boost.

Carriers are capital-intensive, operations-intensive, customer service-
intensive businesses. You have to run them effectively, _as a carrier_ , at
huge expense, or they degrade.

Apple has no competence in running wireless carriers. Tens of billions of
dollars will buy a lot of competence, but not instantaneously. Given the
stakes, I imagine "operating a wireless carrier" is not one of those things
you want to learn how to do as you go.

I'm also amused by the sentiment on HN (and the Internet at large) that 2012
wireless carriers are really just a cartel organized to collude on providing
bad customer service and exorbitant rate structures. As if no carrier figured
out that executing better service and value would improve their competitive
position; no, the only reason wireless carriers suck is that they choose to
suck!

~~~
chc
I remember back in 2006 when everybody thought the phone manufacturers were
doing the best they could as well. The CEO of Palm famously responded to
rumors of the iPhone:

> _Responding to questions from New York Times correspondent John Markoff at a
> Churchill Club breakfast gathering Thursday morning, Colligan laughed off
> the idea that any company — including the wildly popular Apple Computer —
> could easily win customers in the finicky smart-phone sector._

> *“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make
> a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out.
> They’re not going to just walk in.”

Turns out they really were just sitting on their laurels, and Apple really
could walk in and eat their lunch.

Not disputing that running a carrier is a PITA. Just that the carrier market
today really is competent and providing roughly the best value it can.

~~~
bonzoesc
> Turns out they really were just sitting on their laurels, and Apple really
> could walk in and eat their lunch.

Not really, Apple had been struggling for a few years to learn how to make a
decent phone too, they just didn't release the ones that kind of sucked.

AT&T (in its previous incarnations as Cingular, SBC, BellSouth, and AT&T) has
spent the last twelve years trying to make a functional cell carrier, and it
takes them over 70,000 employees to do so. I suspect that Apple's 60,000
employees aren't focused on carrier operations.

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Luc
Another reason may be to avoid a conflict of interest - Tim Cook, as the one
ultimately responsible for commencing the payment of dividends, would be
paying himself a rather large bonus out of the company cash.

~~~
iProject
Another way of putting this would be: Leadership.

Apple comes into a lot of criticism for the constraints that it puts on its
employees. If I were an Apple employee, Cook’s action here (omitting financial
gain form himself) would be a valuable demo to me of commitment to employees'
welfare.

~~~
joelrunyon
Exactly.

I hate how the author automatically assumes the worst about Cook and that it
has to do with taxes (even if it did, I'm pretty sure 75 million - (whatever
taxes incurred) is still quite a few million).

I think it makes sense and is a solid move that he recognizes that he's
issuing the dividends and that taking them could appear as a conflict of
interest. If I was an Apple employee, I would be impressed.

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lsen001
Why keep the money at Apple? Why not set up a foundation/donate it to a
charity? Could go just as well for Apple's stingy reputation toward charities.

~~~
sgt
Apple is not a charity. Even though things are going well today in 2012,
doesn't mean that things will be going equally well in 2018. In any case, I
think there will be issuing of dividends down the line. The shareholders can
then themselves decide whether to use the dividends for the purpose of charity
or not. I feel this is the most fair way to run a company. (I am not saying
that Apple should stay entirely away from charities though.)

~~~
mbreese
A good to also think about is that not too long ago, Apple was almost
bankrupt. A lot of people these days just the of Apple as the iPod/iPhone/iPad
titan who makes money hand over fist. But, I wouldn't be surprised if there
was a decent amount of institutional memory about their almost fate in the
90s.

If you almost lot it all, only to come back, you might want to kee a large war
chest too.

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sgt
My heart skipped a beat as I misread the sentence as "[...] Forges $75 Million
Payout". I agree with the other commenter in here regarding it being a
conflict of interest, as Cook is personally responsible for handling the
divident payments to the shareholders.

~~~
yalogin
Does the board have a say in this? Or are dividends something the CEO decides
on?

~~~
sgt
As far as I know, only the board of a company has the power to issue
dividends. However, it is often the case that a chief executive officer is
also a member of the board, thus giving him power to issue dividends.

Tim Cook serves on Apple's board of directors according to this page:
<http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/tim-cook.html>

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factorialboy
How cool would it be if he donated it to cancer research?

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rob08
This is actually not really news since Apple said this already on their
dividend announcement in March. Check the transcript for source

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fijal
According to forbes [<http://people.forbes.com/profile/timothy-d-cook/6607>]
he has 52bln$ in stock. He's just giving up on loose change. This is
comparable to me giving up back to the company around $30, I think I would not
have a problem with it (it also would not make big news)

UPDATE: ups, indeed, I can't read, moot point then

~~~
crntaylor
That's $52 million, not $52 billion, and that's 2010 income. He has unvested
stock worth up to half a billion over the next decade (assuming the share
price stays roughly where it is at the moment).

