
Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals - basseq
http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/06/technology/apple-tim-cook-pay-cut/
======
rblatz
People are all up in arms about headphone jacks, USB-C, and dongles. When the
real issue is Apple completely missing huge new markets.

Apple had Siri out and was in the lead with voice control, then they wasted
it. I never use Siri, she is nearly worthless, but I do use Alexa multiple
times a day. Amazon is Leading the voice assistant market, and Google is right
on their heels.

Home automation was supposed to get better with HomeKit but arrived basically
stalled. They announced all these partners and sold their products at the
Apple Store. Then when HomeKit finally was ready none of those products worked
with HomeKit. You had to buy newer versions that had some proprietary Apple
chip in it.

Apple's cloud offering is confusing and hard to manage, also it doesn't work
with other platforms besides their own. Amazon and Google both do this much
better.

AppleTv is a great product but Apple can't seem to really work with partners
to make it actually innovative. The TV app is a cool idea, but I've yet to
find any reason to actually use it.

It just seems like they've been wondering aimlessly and dropping half products
out there then never iterating and finishing them. Is there some other hidden
project (car?) taking all their top talent? Is there some sort of corporate
culture issue that has driven all the best and brightest brightest elsewhere?
Is there a lot of mismanagement and mixed signals coming down from above?

~~~
chrisabrams
Steve and the unified vision is gone.

While on winter holidays my fiance pointed out to me:

\- She just got a new Macbook Pro from her new job, which has only USB C ports

\- She just got a new iPhone 7 from her new job, which is only a Lightning
port

She cannot connect her phone to her computer to charge without a dongle. EDIT:
a Lightning to USB C cable does exist now. That is still equivalent to a
dongle in my opinion, as the consumer still has to buy it and it is a cable
that won't be used for anything else.

She has to carry two sets of headphones, one for her computer, and one for her
phone.

The unified vision at Apple is gone.

~~~
mtw
Unified vision was nice. What interested me first in the Apple ecosystem was
its use by high-end pros. Photographers, creatives, filmmakers. Then they
announced MacOS X, built upon NeXT/BSD, and the mac pro products.

Now Microsoft has dedicated products for high-end creatives (Surface studio
won't sell but still shows interest in pros), Linux Bash shell in windows 10.
Meanwhile Apple wants pros to use a 9" tablet instead of a laptop.

~~~
qyv
If 2017 turns out to be the year the VR starts to hit the main stream, which
it could be, it will be interesting to see what Apple's response will be.

~~~
ryanSrich
VR has a massive hurdle to get over. You can't expect people to drop $600 on a
headset _and_ (at least) $1k on a machine that can run it.

Costs will come down, but 2017 won't be the year. I expect VR to grow, but
only in the gaming market.

~~~
qyv
Not according to Microsoft, VR is going to be a big push for them this year.
Granted a lot can go wrong, but they are addressing all the points you just
listed:

* Headset Pricing: Major OEMs will be releasing headsets starting at $300 [0]

* Lowering system specs for VR [1]

* Not just a gaming focus: Windows 10 creators update puts an emphasis on 3D and Mixed-Reality, including a 'holographic' interface [2]

[0] [http://1reddrop.com/2017/01/06/microsoft-
announces-299-windo...](http://1reddrop.com/2017/01/06/microsoft-
announces-299-windows-10-vr-headsets-based-hololens-technology/) [1]
[http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2016/12/08/microsoft-
unveils...](http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2016/12/08/microsoft-unveils-
surprisingly-low-spec-requirements-vr-window-holographic/) [2]
[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/upcoming-
features](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/upcoming-features)

~~~
zeroer
I think Microsoft is 2-3 years too early (or maybe that's the plan?). The
technology just isn't there yet. Headesets need to double the resolutions on
the displays and increase the frame rate by 50%.

~~~
martinald
Agreed, I find the current resolution on VR headsets a huge letdown. Actually
made worse by the fact that everything else I have these days is retina, 4K,
etc so at a very high resolution.

------
ChuckMcM
Like others I don't shed a lot of tears when an exec makes only 89% of their
multi-million dollar target bonus :-) I asked an exec at Oracle once about how
it was even motivating. For much of my career I've had some sort of bonus
associated with my salary, at Sun, NetApp, Google all had bonus programs (with
different tweaks). And for an engineer it could be a huge thing. At Google
with all the multipliers in place you could get your entire salary paid
_again_ in just bonus money if you were a superstar. For an engineer that can
be hugely motivating because they need their salary to live on, so bonus money
is "extra".

But when you're an executive and the different in bonus is $8M vs $5M? Sure
its a huge number that you didn't get an extra three million dollars but what
can you do differently with $8M that you can't do with $5M? So my question to
the Oracle exec was "Does it really motivate you to work harder, smarter, etc
if the difference between hitting it out of the park and not doing so has no
impact on your lifestyle?" And his answer was that most of the people that he
worked with were "score" motivated, it wasn't the money it was that they had a
bigger score than their competitive exec.

I'm not sure I really believe that. I mean could Oracle just have Brownie
Points as their bonus metric and still get the same performance effort? But it
really did surprise me that the number was important even though the effect of
the number on their lifestyle was probably not noticeable.

I think Tim needs to avoid being painted like Steve Ballmer, an exec that led
Microsoft to higher growth, profit, and sales, and into the swamp. And for
that reason, not the size of his bonus this year, he needs to pay attention to
the changing forces in the market.

~~~
karyon
This sounds a bit like "my income is normal, and everyone above that is
rich"-thinking that a lot of people have.(if there's a word for that i'd
appreciate any hints :) ) i'd definitely consider engineers at google to be
rich and don't see how another 200k makes that much of a difference. you think
these execs are rich and don't see how another million makes a difference. and
the execs consider billionaires to be rich and don't see how another billion
makes a difference. it's just different scales, but who's actually right?

i think it's important to realise that the scale of income has an extreme
range and we are already on the upper end and definitely rich by global
standards. my personal opinion is that a majority of people living in the
western world is actually rich and any complaints on salaries by these are
just first world problems.

on a more constructive note, i think i've seen a study that said that higher
salary actually does motivate more, but hits the point of diminishing returns
at about (i think) 80k or 100k. I don't remember which country and whether it
was $ or €, but that should give a sense of the rough order of magnitude.

~~~
ChuckMcM
This is a good point. Everyone brings an idea of what "rich" means with them
to the table.

My experience of being an engineer in the Bay Area, with three kids and a
wife, has been that much of my annual salary has been consumed in costs which
I felt I "had" to pay (mortgage, power, food, pre-school or school, clothes,
saving for the future (401k)). And while I recognize that from an annual
salary, property ownership, and actually having savings for retirement that
made me "rich", a bit of extra money from bonuses would enable things like
replacing an older car, or a family trip to Hawaii. Often times the bulk of
any "extra" money would go into things like the savings fund for my kids
college tuition.

For me, and my living situation, when I had the option of earning a bonus it
would enable something in my life (saving for kids educations, a vacation
trip) that would normally be outside of my financial profile. As a result I
was motivated to compete for those bonuses. But had all those other things
been covered vacationing every year in the Alps in my chalet, private jet
service where ever I wanted to go etc. Extra money would have very little
motivation for me. That is why I was really curious about how it motivated
someone who had a multi-million dollar bonus program.

~~~
rictic
Observations:

    
    
      1. Wealth is exponentially distributed.
      2. People tend to socialize with people in their rough income range.
      3. Expenses tend to grow to fill any budget.
      4. US society isn't very good at saving money, so most 
         people's budget for spending is their entire income.
    

Corollaries:

    
    
      1. People tend to know a few people who make >10x what they do, 
         a few people who make <1/10x what they do, 
         and a lot of people that make about what they do. 
      2. Normal expenses in a milieu are enough to use up a person's entire income.
      3. A person's idea of a luxury will tend towards something
         that would require >10x their income to be affordable.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I like the list, in my case with #3 that wasn't true. Perhaps because my
wife's mother was an accountant and so she was always attuned to the cost vs
value equation or perhaps because my involvement in startups where I have
always been attuned to the burn rate vs progress equation.

When I moved to the Bay Area from LA it was with the plan to get a house as
quickly as I could, build up some equity in the house while working for a
company with offices outside of the Bay Area and then transfer to one of those
offices when we had kids so that using the equity in our California house we
could greatly reduce our burn rate and in a lower cost of living location and
support a one earner payroll. So paying attention to our burn rate as a family
was critical to understanding what the payroll requirements would be on a
single earner to maintain a lifestyle that didn't add stress to our lives.

And there are lots of things that incrementally add burn rate, communication
charges, cable service, eating out, expensive to maintain cars, debt
(especially credit card debt) etc. I also had aspirations for paying my kids
college tuition (even though tuition was rising much faster than incomes or
inflation) and being able to reach a point where I could develop enough
passive income from investments/dividends/royalties/what have you that I would
not be required charge an employer for my services in order to survive. Doing
that math kind of make #4 a necessity, had to send money into the future
(save) so that it could cover those costs which I wouldn't be able to cover
out of a paycheck.

On your corollaries I find #1 is blown away by attending a church. It is
especially true if you're volunteering for some of the community service
activities at said church.

I certainly see #2 as a valid up to a point, per the $75K mention earlier. I
remember working as a summer Intern and getting paid $200 a week and thinking
"Wow, I can't even spend all the money I'm making!" but yes, you can always
spend more without too much effort. During (and after) the 2009 banking crisis
when people I knew were out of work and looking at being so for a "long" time
a few of them were astonished at how much their monthly expenses has creeped
up on them without thinking about it. One guy who was out of work for 18
months, once he got back to work he and his family made an explicit agreement
to talk about 'incremental' costs before they took them on.

I also don't know about Corollary #3. Perhaps its a magnitude thing.

~~~
rictic
Thanks for the detailed response :)

Corollary #3 is the one I feel the shakiest about. Interesting point about
church. Childhood friends who went into careers with diverse income ranges,
combined with a social scene outside my career does some of the same things
for me, but I suspect church would do a yet better job in keeping me grounded.

------
jeffehobbs
Apple should have removed the indicator that showed Tim Cook what his sales
goals were.

~~~
hueving
Yeah, the sales goals were never accurate to begin with. :)

------
tarikjn
To step away from sales, since everyone seems so focused on headphone
jacks/MBPt. I think a lot of the uproar this year will subside over the next
1-2 years and the decisions Apple made will make sense.

Apple has always made controversial decisions of this fashion in its history,
many today don't remember because they weren't Apple customers then. I think
those who said Steve Jobs wouldn't have let these decisions happen couldn't be
further from the truth. But these decisions have usually paid off, there just
were less people then to notice/complain.

A lot of the decisions made on the products released last year actually make a
lot of sense to me. If anything, Apple should simply stop including the
earpods with the iPhone to reduce confusion and waste. Moving away from the
headphone jack is not just about wireless and space, but making the DAC part
of the speakers/drivers system. The lightning port is destined to disappear
eventually too, with induction or wireless charging.

I think a lot of this is the result of Apple being ahead of the curve (and
partly driving it), and is consistent with Apple looking ahead and delivering
long-term value products. A wise investor would see the stance of the company
keeping course for the vision in the face of such bad publicity as a good sign
it hasn't lost its edge.

~~~
willtim
The headphone jack is beautifully simple, DRM free, sounds good enough even
for audiophiles and has been around for over 100 years. Buying a decent pair
of headphones with a jack is a worthwhile investment. Buying "lightning"
anything, much less so.

~~~
tarikjn
You don't necessarily have to buy lightning headphones (I wouldn't) or stop
using the audio jack. Audiophiles have already been using lightning to audio
jack DACs, even when the iPhone still had a jack port, for superior audio
quality. You can also connect your jack headphones to a clip-on bluetooth DAC.

So nothing wrong with the audio jack, it's just that exporting it from the
phone usually makes for a better user experience. Ultimately earphones should
not be tied to a device but thought of as tied to your head and be able to
switch between your devices seamlessly.

~~~
saghm
> So nothing wrong with the audio jack, it's just that exporting it from the
> phone usually makes for a better user experience.

I feel like "usually" is a kind of a big leap here, since there's been exactly
one phone to do this, and the verdict is still out about whether it's a
"better user experience".

> Ultimately earphones should not be tied to a device but thought of as tied
> to your head and be able to switch between your devices seamlessly.

That's exactly what we had before when every single device had a headphone
jack. I'm not sure having my headphones work normally on most devices but then
randomly need a dongle for another is "seamless".

------
mark_l_watson
Apple's share price for the last year is up by about 10%, despite problems
with disatisfation over MacBook Pro, no earphone jack, etc. Personally, the
only thing I am really disappointed with is slow progress on web services.

I was considering moving on from Apple myself, but decided that I like their
hardware and my workflow is good on macOS and iOS (on a iPad Pro). I just
bought a MacBook and when my Android phone is 4 years old (soon), I am going
to get an iPhone.

Apple products are expensive but I spend so much time with them that the extra
cost is worth it. Still, I wish Tim Cook and the board of directors would sit
down together and compare Siri with Google Now and Google Assistant.

~~~
pducks32
Everyone I talk to in person loves their new MacBook Pro. They say it's their
favorite MacBook ever.

~~~
sfilargi
How are they dealing with the absence of the 'Esc' key? Is it annoying to have
the soft key or hardly noticeable?

~~~
jamesfmilne
I remapped my Caps Lock to Esc. My motor memory is adapting, and Caps Lock is
actually closer.

I started as someone very sceptical about the touch bar. I don't like it yet,
but I don't hate it now.

------
WalterSear
Oh no, now he won't be able to afford that thing. Oh wait, yes he will.

It seems to me that executive compensation has become so inflated, it's lost
its incentive value.

~~~
maxxxxx
I have read studies that too much reward actually destroys the incentive.
Instead of doing the work they are supposedly incentivized to do the main
focus shifts on getting the reward at any cost.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I think I read that incentives only really work for mundane repetitive work.
For anything intellectual or creative it is neutral or even negative.

~~~
maxxxxx
My company gives out bonuses in the range of 10%. I really appreciate that but
it's not large enough for me to change my work. It probably makes me stay
longer with the company.

If my bonus was a multiple of my salary I would probably think more about
increasing the bonus at any cost.

~~~
brianwawok
Investment banker then. Isn't normal bonus 2x salary?

I would hate to rely so much on bonus. You can't count a mortgage payment on
it. Shouldn't really count retirement on it.

~~~
shostack
I have a relative that is an ibanker. His bonus was a little more than his
base, but he's still somewhat junior (only a couple years in).

He basically lives off his salary and is building up a reserve from the
bonuses that he will then plan to spend in a controlled fashion. The general
sentiment of that industry though seems to be "you should earn enough to not
care about money, and if you don't you probably aren't good enough to deserve
to be a banker."

------
noddingham
The fact that Tim's compensation is tied to sales goals says all you need to
know about Apple as a company.

The idea presented here by Steve about what happens when sales people run the
company is becoming more and more true:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBma82g3Uag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBma82g3Uag)

~~~
dingdongding
That's how most CEOs are paid. Their compensation is tied to goals. Those
goals can be sales figure like Apple or Car deliveries like Tesla. For Steve
Jobs it was revenues.

------
markpapadakis
My theory (everyone has one) is that Tim Cook is excellent at delegating and
orchestrating operations, but he lacks the combination of qualities, charisma
and personality of Jobs that pushed(forced?) people to go above and beyond and
surpass expectations.

Jobs likely had zero tolerance for good enough products. Cook, I presume,
would have wanted people to stay that course but looks like that didn’t
happen, and he wouldn’t boss them around until it did, because maybe he
himself doesn’t know what is great and what isn’t and delegates that to his
lieutenants, and because that’s just not who he is and how he treats his
people.

Apple execs have to do a lot of soul searching to do and should put their
resources to a better use. Invest in quality products(that was their trademark
but they kind of lost their way there), invest in ‘cloud’ services and AI/ML
because they can’t afford not to, innovate in hardware, and understand that
many of their competitors are constantly and consistently out-Apple-ing them
so time is ticking.

------
tannhaeuser
It's easy to paint Tim Cook as beancounter and Steve Jobs as mastermind. But
doesn't this story actually show that Apple's stock holders/investor relations
are the prime reason Apple doesn't take risks/investments as they used to
under Jobs?

I think it's very short-sighted of Apple to neglect their MacOS business in
favour of iOS devices, even though iPhone sales might trounch MacOS's _now_.

------
tyingq
Mentioned, but this was a reduction in cash bonus of around 2.6 million. While
approximately 136 million of his equity vested in the same year. And, he got a
1 million bump up in base salary. The total hit to his comp isn't terribly
notable.

~~~
jbigelow76
The pay dink is probably just the political cover for "sending a message".

------
rackforms
How is Tim Cook still CEO of Apple? Forget sales for a moment and just
consider the damage Apple's brand is suffering. $300 books, headphone jacks,
unreliable cloud services, missed product launches. In may ways Apples
becoming the butt of jokes, a symbol of ignorance. Apple's in total disarray
right now and the most loyal followers, myself included, are either jumping
ship or seriously considering. The mistakes being made are all, without
question, completely avoidable and yet here we are. So I ask again? Why
benefit is Apple gaining keeping him on?

~~~
stupidcar
The company you say is in "total disarray" still made $45.7bn in profit in
2016, and grew its share price by 10%. Those are the facts.

Outside of the technology bubble, most people don't know or care about many of
the issues you cited, or what "loyal followers" on internet forums think.
Major investors, who are the only people who could force Cook out, care about
the numbers. And while Apple's revenue declined this year, it's still insanely
good by any reasonable, and unreasonable, measure. Plus, it comes on the back
of many years of growth, much of which was delivered under Cook's leadership.

If there's a continued decline of revenue and profits, then you might see Cook
forced out in a couple of years, but to ask why he hasn't been forced out
already only demonstrates a total lack of understanding of how business works.

~~~
liveify
I completely agree. Very few people outside of HN and r/apple that I have
talked to have negative opinions of what Apple is doing.

I see no evidence that Apple's products are becoming less popular. The iPhone
is still the go to smartphone that I would recommend to anyone. I have
switched back and forth between iPhone and Android since they came out, but I
would never recommend an Android phone to a casual user. If they want the
newest phone they get the iPhone 7. If they just want a phone the iPhone SE is
a great phone for the price. It will last years and be secure with continued
security software updates.

The Apple Watch is the only smartwatch I've seen bought en mass by non-
techies.

The MacBooks are still the go to laptop for college students that can afford
it. With the exception of some engineering circles where the Surface is
popular, MacBooks are ubiquitous.

And while the AirPods had a delayed launch, they are in my opinion an amazing
first gen Apple product. The ease of use and quality of the Bluetooth
connection is not something I've experienced in Bluetooth before.

~~~
dageshi
Up until recently Apple was sort of in a league all of its own, it had an aura
about it of what I would perhaps describe as "justified hubris", before Apple
perhaps only Microsoft has had that same kind of aura when it was firing on
all cylinders. I think people are sensing that Apple has passed the top of its
curve and is now losing momentum, the hubris isn't really justified anymore.

Apple will still be a hugely profitable and influential company, but it's no
longer in a league all of its own.

~~~
r00fus
Agreed.

Though for security of personal information it's still leagues above Android
and Windows.

------
Analemma_
It's not really a "pay cut"; he's not receiving the maximum potential value of
his incentive bonus.

~~~
Natsu
Also this is focused on salary... isn't it usually the case that the
compensation they receive in stock is far more meaningful?

------
swang
everyone keeps saying it's only HN commenters, r/apple techies that are
complaining about Apple's new changes. calling us/these people "fringe" users.

let's talk about what a "normal" user needs: web browsing and watching
netflix. of course those users are happy. a macbook pro is an excellent $3000
netflix movie watcher and web browser.

but my sister is an actual professional that uses macs because she works in
video editing. her needs are above what a normal user needs in terms of
everything: cpu/gpu power, memory, hard drive space, etc. how have her needs
been met by apple?

no mac pro. she had the old (g5?) tower and just had to straight up move to
the imac because the trashcan darth vader mac pro was way out of her budget
for what it offered.

okay, so maybe the macbook pro is closer to what she needs right? except she
has a whole bunch of legacy usb devices she needs to connect to and her idea
of having to buy dongles or docks on top of the $$$ price tag does not appeal
to her at all. what does she even get for spending this much money? prev
generation cpu with a centimeter-high secondary touchscreen device that costs
$200 more to get (vs last year's non-touchbar model).

she does not use fcpx so she is not heavily attached to apple. she would
rather stick with apple but at this point she is literally being offered zero
options for doing her work.

apple has left her and many other professionals in the dust. tim cook says
they're working on mac pro / desktop models but if they don't come out soon
they're asking for their lunch to be eaten up slowly just like what happened
to microsoft.

microsoft started losing customers in small amounts and they said, "WHERE ELSE
WILL YOU GO?" and apple, and google answered. apple is now playing the same
game. one more user using a google pixel smartphone, one more user using a
microsoft surface studio, one more person using alexa instead of siri and it
eats away at apple's ecosphere. we'll see if apple has the "courage" to change
course.

------
mmonihan
This is an example of one of the more insidious cases of "fake news."

His pay wasn't cut, he simply didn't earn 100% of it as he did in previous
years because they missed their sales goals in 2016. That's baked into his
contract, and isn't really "news."

It may just be wording, but the headline makes the effect sound much more
sensational than the reality.

It's these instances of seemingly harmless clickbait that are eroding the
public's trust in major news outlets.

------
TheRealPomax
As clickbait bot would say "his salary went up from $2m to $3m/yr, and only
his bonus got one-time slashed, still giving him $8.7m this year". This is not
information worth reading on hackernews. If the article actually went into
real detail why the sales goals were missed, and what made them reasonable
goals in the first place, maybe that would have been a worthwhile article to
read.

------
Waterluvian
When you're that rich, money is more of a high score than a tool. A pay cut
will have more symbolic and emotional effect than actually lacking that money.

~~~
hartator
I am pretty sure Tim Cook doesn't care.

~~~
Domenic_S
You missed the point. Getting 100% or 120% of your bonus target says, "you're
an awesome leader and people should respect you". Getting 89.5% says "get your
life together". It's about pride and bragging rights. Nobody wants to go down
in history as the one who led apple's implosion.

~~~
slantyyz
>> Nobody wants to go down in history as the one who led apple's implosion.

True, but in many ways, Tim Cook was the one who helped make Apple insanely
profitable.

If Tim Cook were to be ousted today, I'd bet there'd be a lineup of companies
wanting him to be their CEO.

------
rfrey
I feel like appointing Tim Cook CEO was Steve Jobs' last, master stroke to
secure Steve Jobs' legend.

------
DoodleBuggy
"Apple Bosses See Pay Drop in 2016 as CEO Reaps $145 Million"

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-06/apple-
exe...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-06/apple-executives-
see-pay-drop-in-2016-as-ceo-reaps-145-million)

I think he will get by.

------
quizzas
Tim Cook has always been an efficiency expert. He is the master of supply
chain management and logistics. He is perfect for operations and everything
related to cost management. However, do his skills translate to the visionary
tasks expected of the CEO? I understand he's delegated these tasks to others,
but ultimately, these delegates have failed. Either Cook needs to find better
visionaries, or step down, because Apple is completely rudderless as a
purveyor of EXCITING consumer products. It's becoming more like LG, Samsung
and Lenovo - a boring derivative consumer electronics product company.

~~~
Steko
> do his skills translate to the visionary tasks expected of the CEO

So this is a real question, why does the CEO have to be the visionary? Why
can't the product visionary role be supplied by Ive? According to Jobs
himself, he 'set things up at Apple so that no one can tell Jony what to do'.
It seems like Ive could have taken the CEO desk after Steve passed if that's
what he wanted but because he isn't interested in doing the dog and pony stuff
instead they came up with this dual split where Jony focuses on Products and
Tim does all the stuff Tim did as COO and temp CEO when Steve was sick and it
just so happens that Tim's nameplate says CEO and Jony's says CDO.

~~~
norea-armozel
I think the problem is that Tim is too focused on cost effectiveness and
hasn't learned to reign in Jony and company which seem to not give a flip
about UI and software. To them it seems software should "just work" without
any effort on quality assurance. Seriously, either Jony needs to step down
from being the big boss on the whole visionary stuff or pushed out. I love his
hardware design but I really am hating his software decisions and choices.

------
crististm
There is something that can be seen throughout history of mankind:

Some dude leads a country for many years in prosperity and abundance. Because
he has results, his opposition is practically non-existent and he stays in the
lead until he dies. Another king comes but he is practically unable to raise
to the same level as his predecessor. His opposition is stronger (relative to
him) and he ends up either overthrown or burning all the money or both...

This backlash effect is very clear after almost any powerful figure. Without
peers of the same calibre, good results will soon be cancelled out as if non-
existent.

------
fleshweasel
They should start paying Tim Cook in dongles.

------
hyperion2010
I have to say, I stopped by a university computer store today and they had the
three new mac book pros on display. When I went to test out the keyboard I was
horrified. How does anyone think that having sub millimetre key-action is
acceptable? The things barely move! Same with the touchpads. Maybe I'm biased
coming from thinkpad keyboads, but even compared to the previous generation of
mac keyboards (which I have encountered from time to time when I need to help
someone with a mac out) the new ones are a joke. Putting a multitouch screen
with haptic feedback would be better. So serious question: does anyone
actually like the new mac keyboards? They seem like a complete failure to me,
it is like watching the apple engineers striving for further thinness because
that is their only metric for goodness, forget trying to do usability studies.

~~~
kevinherron
I actually really like the new keyboard. Not sure what to tell you. I was a
little hesitant, but I think it feels better to type on than the old ones now.
It's not like I'm used to shitty keyboards either - when I'm not on a laptop
all my keyboards are mechanical.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I'm the same, the new keyboard works fine for me.

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switchstance
Personally, I'd hate to have his position. I can't imagine the pressure of
trying to fill the shoes of Steve.

~~~
existencebox
People always say this about CEOs, but I'd take that position in an instant.
I'd let someone rake hot coals over my face for 100m+ (frankly, for 10m+ as
well)

The problem I find is ever climbing that ladder without being in an extremely
lucky position. I've had a career track I'm both proud and grateful of, and
still see no "feasible" route to ever having even orders of magnitude less
than that sort of earning potential short of winning the lottery (real or
startup, take your pick.)

I'm sure I'll get the traditional rebuttle of "but CEO's provide some service
worth xxxm"/"the job is so much more difficult" but what little research I've
found on correlation of executive salary to performance has disagreed, and I'd
respond with the somewhat engineer-centric answer that without a CEO, you
still have a product. Without your line devs, you have nothing but a talking
head.

~~~
atomi
Money fetishization.

I personally would rather be middle class and supporting something that
improves the lives of all people than having exhorbitant personal wealth that
insulates you from reality. Look at money as a means to an end and it becomes
less of a fetish.

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norea-armozel
It's not a huge surprise to me. Apple's UX and UI stuff has taken such a huge
dive in quality. I had hoped someone else would take up the torch but not even
Microsoft with Windows 10 is doing good enough IMO. It's weird how usability
has taken a back seat to flashy movie style UIs which few can use effectively.
Seriously, just give us similar stuff to the finder and the start menu and
leave the flashy UI stuff to Hollywood films.

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astaroth360
Apple needs to get their shit together. OSX has gone downhill fast, they don't
seem to know who their target audience is, the new Macbook Pro's have crap
battery, what else could they even do wrong at this point?

They need to completely turn things around if they are going to keep the
developer community. I guess they just worry about the iPhone, but by ignoring
everything else they're going to alienate their customers.

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kingkawn
All the resources in the world aren't worth much if you can't think of
anything good to do.

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nnain
Looking at the last two years, it's difficult to be excited about this year's
Apple Events. He did well in his role in Operations; but guess Apple needs
someone from Products/Design division with a refreshing future vision.

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neovive
It's hard to keep growing a company as big as Apple. Maybe they need to spin-
off the desktop division into a separate company that can innovate
independently of their mobile devices.

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kabes
I think it's time for Apple to open up and be less restrictive about their
platform. As the competition is catching up with Apple, I see a lot of people
are tempted to buy at least one product (laptop, phone, chromecast, ...) that
is not Apple. The problem is that Apple only works great if you go 100% Apple.
As soon as you have a couple of non-apple products, your apple products tend
to loose a lot of value. You'll likely find you'd rather use Dropbox than
iCloud. Rather share with Chromecast than airplay, ...

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gist
As if this really matters to someone in Cooks position I would guess that the
money loss is the least thing he actually cares about.

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ry4n413
it doesn't matter, he has US$785 million

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aw3c2
Oh noes, only 24k per day anymore!

------
drdoom
Here is an insider point of view of the reason Tim Cook missed his sales goals
as an Apple engineer describes it:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXuVAi2bHdA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXuVAi2bHdA)

