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Apple's stock is up over 1000% in the 10 years since Tim Cook became CEO. Over that time it went from a $350B company to a $2.7T company. He oversaw the creation of over $2T in value and his net worth is in the low single digit billions? If anything he's underpaid for the job he's doing.

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Always when these arguments come up I wonder: is there actually a tangible way to measure how much of this was because of Cook (or whatever other CEO)? Maybe he is just riding a wave of success?! Maybe someone else would have the exact same results?

To me it always seems that the success of a company is projected onto its upper management in an unhealthy way. Maybe I am just clueless however.

There is no accurate way to measure how much was because of Cook. Clearly he made some decisions as CEO that put the company on a very profitable path.

But the same could be said of any job. Pay a programmer $400k. Was the work completed really worth that much?

I wonder, did the regular employees see their income go up 1000% in this same timespan?

If they invested their money in the company stock, certainly yes. The basic tenet of investment is simple: no risk, no reward.

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