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Comment by laluser | Hacker News Reader

Okay, not defending his pay here, but 1,400 median employee salaries is not that crazy. First, think about the valuation of Apple since Tim took over. Yes, it's not all attributed to him, but he has definitely made some very good decisions along the way, despite being set up with a money printer. Secondly, for every successful CEO package, there are hundreds of others that you don't hear about because they failed to meet goals laid out in their compensation package. Finally, these compensation packages are set up a few years before with targets that the company needs to meet.

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1400 is absurd.

1400 suggest these corporations are far too large.

It means that there a tiny elite which have the power to buy out everything away from the worker class, be that essentials like housing or luxuries like concert or sports tickets. If concert tickets were priced by the "free market" alone then typical workers simply would never be able to afford them as evidenced by the amount of scalping that happens.

When you have a small powerful elite which can price out the average person from whole markets entirely you have a really broken system.

Corporations like Apple have inherent economies of scale though - all the engineering cost of developing the latest iPhone is spread across all the devices sold, and the cost of developing something like Apple Silicon is spread across every device they make and sell. Saying that corporations that big shouldn't exist is effectively equivalent to saying modern technology shouldn't exist. Like, I know the whole argument that people who complain about this but own an iPhone gets a lot of flak, but in this case the thing being complained about and the existence of devices like iPhones is fundamentally intertwined; one enables the other.

I think the system is somewhat democratic. This is what the board of directors chose as his compensation and they themselves are elected. Remember, that Apple is extremely large. These median salaries probably include retail store employee packages as well. If you look at just engineering, product, design salaries, the x factor here probably comes down to a factor of 10, so 140 instead of 1400.

why should retail store workers make less than developers? Hours are hours time is time. People should be valued by willingness to work, maybe a small multiplier for a degree, but CEO's definitely need a pay cap, if the max he could earn is say 500x average salary, well guess what if the average salary increases by x percent he could end up making the SAME as he does now, except everybody else makes out like bandits too... or maybe he only makes the equivalent of 1000x now, but still 500x but the average wage is the equivalent where 1000x before is 500x now..etc...

> Hours are hours time is time.

That's not true. How long would it take a random person off the street to be good enough to work as a developer at Apple? How long for a retail store worker?

The difference is years. The difference limits supply for good developers, and since the demand is also high, their labor is more expensive to buy than retail store workers.

Limiting CEO pay to some multiplier is fine, but we don't have to pretend that everyone's labor should be similarly valued.

How long would it take a random person off the street to be good enough to work as a developer at Apple?

If they had rich parents and didn't have to work at Apple to just survive, probably not long at all. They'd easily do it. The only reason they aren't successful is because of poverty.

It's been hashed out between Paul Graham and the cloudflare ceo (iirc) that not anybody can build a company because true success requires having rich parents or supports you can fall back on while you're building prototypes and side businesses...

>Oh Paul, you know better. I had to borrow money from my mom to pay my taxes when we were starting Cloudflare. But I certainly came from a relatively privileged background, and so did the AirBnB founders. It’s hard to take risks if you don’t have a safety net. source: https://twitter.com/eastdakota/status/1129929178382446592

Again given everybody starts at the same beginning starting line, then sure we can begin valuing people based on credentials, etc... but since we don't have a society like that....hours are the only equal output a person CAN give, and maybe a better measurement of their work ethic and value to society.

society would kinda suck if I couldn't order a pizza because nobody wants to work shit wages....I value them, but I can't afford to personally pay them more than the cost of goods and maybe a tip... it's on the company and society to form unions and supports to ensure that they can lead happy lives without having to (because some don't want to) go through further schooling and education.

When you're working 2 jobs and 80s per week and still can't own your own car, it becomes a big endeavor just to not decide to end it all after 10 or 20 years of that... it's grueling and miserable.

Personally I think the only solution is re-building the strong unions of the 30s and 40s... but that's gonna take a long time to get right.

Your mental model is wrong. Employers don't pay for time they pay for value.

If one developer automates a task previous done by 10 staff, they are more valuable than those 10 staff.

Could Tim Cook be more valuable that 1400 staff? Easily.

If you don't like it, become more valuable.

It's a completely different skill that you need to bring to the table. A retail employee just requires a week or so of training vs. a four year college degree (or similar experience) for an engineering job. Similarly, the skill that a good CEO brings to the table is equally as different. The article also mentions that his compensation in 2020 was like 4x lower, so that's interesting.

The success at Apple has little to do with Tim Cook and if he was replaced with one of those unsuccessful CEOs they wouldn't lose a beat.

Is he worth 1,400x? Let's rephase this...

You can have 1,400 Apple employees or Tim Cook.. I would rather have those employees. But maybe Tim can do the work of 1400

Last time Apple replaced it's CEO with a string of unsuccessful CEO's it ended up on the brink of bankruptcy.

You mean the guy who pushed Steve Jobs out or Steve Jobs himself?

Getting rid of the founder has huge issues but getting rid of the other CEO happened too late.

was that before or after they rose from the iphone/ipad era?

Apple of 2020 and even 2010 is much different from Apple of 2000 or 1995.

Apple has 154,000 employees.

1) Let's say we rid Cook and add 1,400 more employees, we would arrive at an Apple with 155,399 employees and no Cook.

2) Let's say we rid 1,400 employees and get another Cook. We would arrive at an Apple with 152,601 employees including an additional Cook.

I would argue Apple in either 1) or 2) would have similar outcome for another decade. However 1) would likely support more families. I like 1).

Put another way. If there are 10 levels between him and those who are at the lowest level of hierarchy (assuming the median employee is somewhere in the lowest rung of this org tree), this equates to roughly your comp doubling as you get promoted each level.

Then is it fair to question whether this ratio of comp between successive levels is ok?

> Secondly, for every successful CEO package, there are hundreds of others that you don't hear about because they failed to meet goals laid out in their compensation package

Are there any notable examples of a CEO missing a target and getting paid less than they could have?

It's notable if they meet the targets, not if they miss the targets. So, no, we wouldn't hear about the reverse in the news.

Then how do we know this phenomenon exists?

Are we asking how do we know when companies fail, or how do we know whether committees set executive compensation based on targets?

Executive compensation for public companies is actually public -- shareholders vote on it every year in the proxy filings. This is sometimes called "Say on Pay"

if a union of worker co-ops were to pool money, buy enough shares in a public company like apple (say 50 billion dollars worth), could they vote on Tim Cook's salary to never exceed 1 million?

yes. this is actually a very common topic to result in proxy battles around.

Did Tim Cook ever design, build, or package any product that apple makes or just tell people what to do?

Do the product designers mine metal ore?

Given the miners do a hugely dangerous job and suffer health effects, one would think they'd be paid more too.

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