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Comment by mfiguiere | Hacker News Reader

As mentioned by several comments, while one can argue that Big Pharma should spend more on R&D, the title of the article is not so relevant.

From Apple financial statement for 2023 [1]:

- Spent on R&D: $29.9B

- Spent on stockholders (dividends + buybacks): $92.6B

[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2023-q4/FY23_Q4_Consol...

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Agreed. I'm sympathetic to the article's cause, but Pfizer/JNJ shareholders haven't done particularly well in the past couple decades.

Since 2000, the CAGR for (PFI, JNJ, SPY, IWM) was (1.56%, 7.68%, 7.79%, 7.63%) respectively.

(Per portfoliovisualizer.com. 2000 is the earliest date with data for IWM.)

Poor comparison.

- Apple doesn't make critical products that people must have or they will be sick or die.

- While Apple certainly benefits from some tax-payer funded basic scientific research done at universities (like all tech companies) that pales in comparison with the amount of NIH-funded research that Big Pharma relies on (to be clear, I don't have a problem with taxpayer funded research).

We aren’t spending public money on Apple.

Are you sure govts never bought an Iphone?

Governments buy iPhones to use. The US government gives bigpharma money and tax benefits as a way to encourage R&D.

Those are not the same

So you think your phone has zero tech that originally came from govt funded R&D such as the military?

The iPhone doesn’t exist without mobile networks that telecommunications companies used government subsidies to build. (The same subsidies, by the way, that some like to complain weren’t spent on FTTH. Personally, I think mobile was the right call.)

Apple’s products are almost entirely dependent on the internet and telecommunications networks and tech, all of which was funded and researched by the government.

We're spending public money on every corporation. Who built the roads their goods travel on? Who educated their workers?

We're spending the money less directly perhaps.

Yes, but Apple sells mosrly overpriced luxury products that needs rich executives for the customers to identify with.

We don't want our medicine makers to have the same attitude.

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