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Comment by seaman1921 | Hacker News Reader

seaman1921

yeah, he probably has enough to just quit regardless of the vesting plan. just sounds like the wealth fund trying to gain some pr.

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The wealth fund doesn't need "PR", as it's one of the world largest already (actually the largest, even surpassing Chinas and both of Singapores combined wealth funds) https://www.swfinstitute.org/fund-rankings/sovereign-wealth-...

Its making a point about a position it's held for a while; that it closely scrutinizes all its investments, a habit it's had for a while, and one it attributes to it's success relative to the nations small size.

Then why pay him that much in the first place?

He says he's giving all of his wealth away when he dies anyway. So I'm guessing he has plans to give it to causes he really thinks are important going forward. I'm pretty sure someone like Tim Cook doesn't need the cash so there must be a reason for the compensation and to be fair Apple's execution has been nothing short of incredible since he took over.

As a sign of respect, and so he can hold his head high while standing alongside his peers.

Yeah, because at that level, that's what's going to make the difference between him and his peers as they're chatting :-)

I think people at this level have enough economic dignity points already. Let those on the bottom rung have a few.

He is Tim Cook. Everyone knows who he is and his compensation hardly matters in terms of prestige.

It might be a bit hard to believe, but in reality many passionate employees don't really care about the pay - they genuinely want to build a great product - but they are still paid well because the company looks after the top talent in every possible way.

Then why pay him that much in the first place?

Because he cares bout the pay because it’s how he keeps score

This would be my exact interpretation - it's not that he needs the money it's that he wants the cachet of being insanely well remunerated

If you want a real answer, it’s because there are many other companies that would love to hire Mr. Cook and would be willing to pay a lot to do it.

Google, is that you?

Why would the wealth fund need PR..?

If the people of your country perceive the wealth fund as "evil" they tend to revolt, so they need PR to keep the people happy.

How would the people of Norway revolt against their own country's sovereign wealth fund? Norway is a very small country with (I seem to remember) the largest wealth fund in the world due to investments of revenue from the oil industry. I highly doubt people there are going to perceive it as evil based on whether or not it's taking a particular stance on Apple's vesting plan.

They do have a tradition of taking stances on corporate governance as a matter of principle and this looks like that.

Norwegian here, can confirm. We do not see the wealth fund as an evil thing :)

The fund has a policy of being an active investor to improve worker rights, prevent unethical practices and has a ban on investing in certain areas like weapons, oil and gas (due to diversification issues), tobacco etc.

Edit: Just a note, the funds operation is completely transparent and you can follow the actions and read about strategy, what time frames they are looking at when investing (very long) and more on their web page [1].

[1] https://www.nbim.no/en/

Drawing a bit of a long bow to consider a trillion dollar fund voting in its own shareholder interests anything other than financially driven.

In Canada CRA’s (our IRS) pension plan uses offshore accounts and other avoidance strategies to not pay Canadian taxes. It’s not a good look.

Obviously this is a different issue but it’s important for govts to be consistent. It’s like during WW2 when the Royal family obeyed rationing.

I had no idea this was the case. Can you provide a reference?

I can’t find it anymore. I gave it a good 5 searches it seems to all be tax related articles on tax shelters. I think maybe it’s because of how google deprioritizes old content now.

It was from around 2014-2015 if I recall correctly.

Why does the CRA pension plan even have taxes on it in the first place? It's like taxing a government agency for it's budget that it receives it's tax dollars for.

Because of the rule of law, essentially the same reason govt employees pay tax

Let me reiterate, why is the law set up like that?

They are following advice from another company (ISS). I would assume that ISS on the other hand have some policies on how to evaluate these things and what to recommend (random results from Google [1]). While this does not make difference in case of Mr Cook, it might be relevant for less wealthy managers and they likely want to apply similar policies for everybody.

[1] https://www.issgovernance.com/file/policy/active/americas/US...

I’m not sure he has enough. If he puts that $2B in a savings account earning the average 0.06% interest, he’d only be getting $100K per month. How can anyone live in so little? And he’d be losing a lot to inflation.

Nobody keeps anything close to that kind of amount in a savings account. They put it into various asset classes that appreciate by a lot more than 0.06%/year.

Woosh

I presume this is sarcasm.

That being said, if his wealth is all in AAPL, then he would earn about 1/2% on it - roughly $11 million per year.

> yeah, he probably has enough to just quit

I bet most peope in the world would retire after only one year of his base salary ($3M in 2021).

edit: not considering taxes ;)

With current life expectancy and inflation prospects, one would need to live quite modestly or invest these 3M very wisely to retire on such a small amount.

In many parts of the world you can live luxuriously for decades with $3M in assets. It feels wrong to call what 99% of the world population can never expect to save, a "small amount".

Life expectancy has been decreasing, and you'd keep those 3M invested (bond if not stocks) to fend off inflation.

3M is absolutely a mind-boggling amount. Ok, housing in San Francisco will eat most of that, but the vast majority of people in the world retire on way less than that

> but the vast majority of people in the world retire on way less than that

You’re missing something big here. Most people who retire on way less than that are doing so at retirement age.

For example, let’s assume death at 78. The money required to retire at 30 needs to last 48 years. The money required to retire at 65 only needs to last 13 years. And that’s not even taking into account that social security is only available at normal retirement age and you wouldn’t be contributing to it by retiring early.

$3 million is not going to be a secure retirement. It’s going to be very modest living subject to ruin by either inflation (if you go the bond route) or depressions (if you go the stock route).

By historical averages for the S&P for the last 100 years - you could draw down AT LEAST $10k per month indefinitely.

If you can't get by on that (2x median income in US, top 10% income in the US, top 1% in the world)... You have problems.

Two points: In the context of the upthread wager, as a California employee, you’d be left with just under $1.5M if you worked for one year and paid your taxes. No way does that provide $10K/month for possibly 70 years.

Even if you somehow got it entirely tax-free and had no living expenses such that you could start with a $3M balance after a year of work, I’d wager that the vast majority of people would choose to work at least 2 years and many would choose to work 4 or 5 years and that only a small minority of them would quit after 1 year.

Wouldn’t you rather work 2 years and live on $20K/mo rather than just 1 and live on $10K/mo?

10k a month won’t be much in 50 years. You forgot to account for inflation.

In most of the world, 3M is enough to buy a dozen of student flats which you can easily live just from the rent.

Or just move out of the Bay Area/NYC/your country’s equivalent overpriced metro, and live very comfortably.

Of course it works better if your closer to Tim’s age than in your 20s or 30s.

LOL, #firstworldproblems

$3MM would allow you to easily live on 80k/yr, adjusted for inflation, for the rest of your life. And that's being conservative.

Right. Which is below the living standard most US tech workers have.

Most tech workers spend more than 80k a year? Spend, not earn? Are you serious?

Most tech workers in the Bay Area spend $80k/year on housing and commuting expenses, easily. Rents of $5k/mo and mortgage payments (piti) of $7k or more can easily account for almost all of that.

The bay area is a huge outlier when you talk about "most US tech workers"

Right.

The average tech worker family income in the US is well past 50k. Looking at how poor the savings rate is, I would suspect they are spending a lot more than 80k.

For their family? Absolutely.

Even outside the bay area.

Many of us have no desire to retire at 30 and live a life of poverty. To do what? Play video games all day?

Much rather work for longer, and do something...

TIL that making more than the median family in America is poverty ::rolls eyes::

People arguing with you are not serious.

Excluding NYC and Silicon Valley, definitely easy to spend $40-50k depending on where you live ... a lot harder to spend the rest ...

I could retire on $300k. But I live in Ohio and have nothing to prove.

Sure - if you want to live below the poverty level.

I mean, some people live below the poverty level just fine. Power to you if you can.

But $300k will only allow you to indefinitely draw down $12k per year / $1k per month. Considering health insurance is mandatory and costs $4k+ per year - that's not leaving you much.

Because of inflation, the value of $1K in a decade or so will be way less.

The $1k drawdown adjusts for inflation.

This is all true if you have no imagination. I have also lived below poverty level so I know how to do it without being worried and stressed out. Having your entire day to do what you want is priceless. I would be living out of a garden, so no need for health insurance.

When you have your time to yourself you can pursue helping people, which builds community and unquantifiable opportunity and prosperiry around you. I can see how most people these days would have no faith in that since each family lives in a bubble where they don't need or know anyone else because they have enough money to pay through the nose for everything. They get no benefit from the community in that case.

Besides. Having $300k I could invest most of it and buy half a mountain with a decent house and a barn here.

Those who would retire with $3M dont have the drive, ability and desire to run Apple.

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