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Comment by akie | Hacker News Reader

You are justifying someone being paid $750m. No one needs that much money. No one. Why are you defending this? It's obscene.

Really reminds me of this https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/147/150/e2c...

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> You are justifying someone being paid $750m. No one needs that much money. No one. Why are you defending this? It's obscene.

Yeah, he doesn't need it, but I am happy that he has it. He clearly is a guy who can deliver value for society and I don't think he is going to use the money stupidly.

Would I pay someone $750m to run a company? Definitely not. However as a stock owner I would pay using stock compensation, and that's what happened here. The whole idea that the owners are paying in cash is wrong to begin with, as that isn't the case.

Of course no one needs it. But the discussion here was if he had earned it, and he definitely has. Relative to value creation, I bet he’s very low in the CEO compensation league.

> But the discussion here was if he had earned it, and he definitely has.

I disagree.

> Relative to value creation, I bet he’s very low in the CEO compensation league.

You really think Tim Cook has created the value of the company? I very seriously doubt it. At the risk of whataboutisms: what about the engineers who did the work? What about the factory workers who did the work? What about the contractors who did the work?

Tim Cook didn't create the value. He created a contract. That's all.

> He created a contract. That's all.

OK then.

People are not paid based on what they need, they're paid based on value they provide (and other things, like how difficult they are to replace).

> People are not paid based on what they need, they're paid based on value they provide

If that were true then he'd be paid far less. Tim Cook does not provide value to Apple to the tune of billions of dollars. The people who work for Apple do.

> how difficult they are to replace

What would be difficult about replacing Tim Cook?

Elsewhere in this post people have said that his compensation is 0.03% of Apple's market cap.

It would not be hard to believe that Tim Cook's decisions had a larger impact than that on Apple's market cap because he has extremely high leverage as the CEO.

That people should only have what they “need” as determined by [you?] is a political/moral philosophy that is quite controversial.

You want to go down that path? Do tech works in SF “need” $500k compensation packages?

I have no problem defending billionaires who I think are good people, such as Bill Gates.

Are you serious? His PR person must be working some serious magic. Before 2020, Billy was known to be the most ruthless capitalist CEO of the late 20th century.

When will people be done with these communism ideas? Go to Cuba or Venezuela to experience the equality by yourself, like I did: I was born in the USSR, and though I was young when it finally dissolved, I've had enough of this commie shit.

Since he immedially sold all the stock, I assume he has a use for the money. Otherwise keeping the stock would be better.

The markets are seriously inflated with cheap money. That can’t last forever, or even much longer. Best to cash in now and redeploy the cash to a diverse set of assets.

That’s just risk management

It just goes to show how deeply the capitalist narrative dominates our entire society, that we have people defending this so earnestly.

I can imagine investing in megaproejcts or foundations that nobody else seems to be investing in for the good of humanity or a cause, such as space travel.

Otherwise, 750 million dollars is probably more than what anybody needs.

It reminded me of SpaceX almost dying in the early days because even Elon Musk is not made out of unlimited money.

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