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Comment by sashank_1509 | Hacker News Reader

The kind of ridiculous situation that arises when a company is drowning in money with no idea what to do about it. Make work for lawyers, Make work for engineers, share buybacks, no good vision on how to spend the money

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Funny how 'give more of it to employees' and 'lower prices' aren't really in the vocabulary

In their defense, most Apple employees are paid in stocks and share buybacks likely increases their compensation more than directly increasing their compensation.

Are rank-and-file (not engineering) employees of Apple compensated in enough stock that buybacks are really worth that much? I highly doubt it. And even then, until those shares are sold they are subject to the whims of the market. Paper millionaire status doesn't mean shit if you can barely afford to pay rent.

A bird in hand is worth two in the bush...

SWEs at Apple are not "barely able to afford rent"

I'm not talking about SWEs. Who cares about them. I am talking about Apple Store employees, or the dudes behind the 'genius' bar, or Jill from marketing

Considering many shareholders are not employees, how could giving money (/increasing share price through stock buybacks) for shareholders affect employees compensation more than directly giving it to the employees?

Or 'pay taxes'

This is one of those things where I can go either way on. I'm not mad about the taxes I pay but we're I, or anyone, given the option to reinvest that money into MyFamilyConsulting LLC or give it away via my own self-directed charitable endeavors I would do it without even thinking about it.

I'm in Business School and took a class in Finance. In a lecture the professor presented what to do if a company has too much cash, the options where:

1. Invest in positive NPV projects 2. Store some for a rainy day 3/4. Pay divdends or stock buybacks

Only after did I think "You know, what about lowering prices or paying employees, these options are soley about shareholders". But... yes, managers are taught to think about increasing shareholder wealth above all.

> But... yes, managers are taught to think about increasing shareholder wealth above all.

Saving money for a rainy day helps employees, too. Investing in new projects does indirectly because staffing up those projects increases the demand for labor, so the price of labor goes up.

The good old trickle down.

At some point, every company's "how to spend the money" has to turn into "give it back to the shareholders and let them seed more ideas". Infinite growth is pretty impossible.

We can thank Jack Welch for making it popular to consider shareholders as the most important cohort of people to be rewarded when a business goes well... His way of managing businesses completely infests MBA programs around the world.

That's a different question. But at some point, Apple spending the money to expand into a new product line is less effective than giving money to shareholders and letting them invest the money.

Then why buy Apple shares if you don't want Apple to invest your money?

Buy shares in a profitable company and then demanding that it channel all it's profits back to you isn't an investment - it's an attempt to grab a fruit (sic) of somebody else's earlier investment.

I do agree that sometimes, if the company hasn't got any good ideas for investment, then the right thing is to give the money back. However, overall I think shareholder/financial short-term-ism is largely destructive - limiting companies ability to invest.

But then those short term often shareholders don't have to pick up the cost of destruction - especially if they avoid paying tax ( the state/tax payer picks up the restructuring cost with unemployment benefit etc ).

>no good vision

Interesting choice of words given their new product announcement a few weeks back at WWDC.

They also had a memorable "Can't innovate anymore, my ass!" moment at a past WWDC . I'm firmly waiting for an actual product in stores and people using it in their living room to judge on Apple's vision.

> no good vision

Ah yes, years of continuing technical and product innovations, with "no good vision"

Attacking fruit sellers is not "a vision".

Which isn’t what’s happening. A fruit seller has a hypothetical concern over a trademark application, which is how you turn a non story into a story on a slow news day.

  Apple is manoeuvring itself into a position where it could
  Without any other reasonable explanation for why it should
  Except for the one of which Fruit Union is afraid it would

> Without any other reasonable explanation for why they should

You want a reasonable explanation such as they might want to use a 3D logo when launching a 3D product their currently spending millions advertising.

No other explanation except that they’re registering a very specific logo which they are now the owners of but has been used in trade since the 60s within the domain of trade relating to the historical use of that trademark (that is music and related media). You know, exactly the sort of thing you might expect the owner of a trademark to do in all the relevant legal jurisdictions where it might be using that mark in trade

That's precisely the point I was trying to make in response to my parent; Fruit Union's fears are fully justified as there'd be no reason for Apple to pursue this trademark if they weren't intending to exploit the perks of its ownership in the future.

Yes, the perks of its ownership like enforcing their trade mark in the trade they are engaged in. Specifically the sale of music and the licensing of that mark back to Apple Records. Again they aren't trademarking the concept of apples, or all pictures of apples, nor is the application for anything more than the categories under which that trademark was. Further more, the application is not really any different from any number of other trademarks for which the Swiss government has already registered for Apple, such as:

https://www3.wipo.int/madrid/monitor/en/showData.jsp?ID=ROM....

or perhaps most relevantly this one which is the other Apple Records mark that they own and was granted full protection for:

https://www3.wipo.int/madrid/monitor/en/showData.jsp?ID=ROM....

Realistically this article is pure rage bait mixed with some clever marketing by the Swiss fruit union. They're not seriously worried, they're getting free press by stirring up controversy over an absolute nothing. And you can tell because of this weasel word line:

>“We have a hard time understanding this, because it’s not like they’re trying to protect their bitten apple,” Fruit Union Suisse director Jimmy Mariéthoz says, referring to the company’s iconic logo.

They would understand if Apple were (and indeed already has as linked above) trademarking their Apple Computer logo, but they somehow don't understand why Apple is also trademarking the logo of Apple Records which they also own? Either everyone involved in this article from the fruit union reps all the way up to the editors are completely ignorant of Apple Records, their logo and the previous IP battles regarding that logo or they're playing dumb for the sake of making a story.

I can't understand your punctuation-free prose. Could it be that you're an IP lawyer?

Good thing they’re not attacking anyone then. They’re very clearly from the linked application in the article trying to register a trademark for a very long standing trademark that they now own within the realm of trade that said trademark has been traditionally used. That is, they’re trying to register the Apple Records (of the Beatles fame) logo as a trademark in the realm of music and related multi-media.

It really is relative. If Apple was spending even a majority of it's profits in new products then I would take back my statement. Spending a paltry billion a year (Estimated for Vision Pro) when you make more than 200 billion in profits, and the majority of profits going into share buybacks is "no good vision".

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