So which is it: either Apple needs to pay people a shit-ton of money to come work for them, or they don't.
Most of the commenters in this thread feel, as you do, that CEOs need to be paid a shit-ton of money, or else they would never work for Apple, but the rank-and-file do not need to be paid a lot of money, because Apple is such a great company to work for. Can you explain the discontinuity? Why is Apple great to work for as a peon, but terrible to work for as a CEO? Why does extra money paid to a CEO definitely and absolutely result in a better CEO, but extra money paid for employees won't get them better employees?
Keep in mind the studies that show highly paid CEOs underperform low-paid ones when you answer.
Apple's software engineering salaries appear to be commensurate with Google's[1]. At the high end, Apple may pay less, but this might be an artifact of having 25% of the data points that are provided for Google.
> Why does extra money paid to a CEO definitely and absolutely result in a better CEO
When did I say this?
> Keep in mind the studies that show highly paid CEOs underperform low-paid ones when you answer.
I'd love to see these studies. I'm very curious to see how these CEOs' compensation packages are structured.
If you go back through my comments from the past week, you'll run into this one: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2907364. Although you didn't mention this, I think it's still relevant to this conversation.
The key difference between Tim Cook and, say, Leo Apotheker is that Tim's been at Apple for 12 or 13 years, and plans to be there for another 10 at least. He's been inculcated in the culture, and still has to answer to one of the co-founders. I doubt Leo lasts longer than three years. What does Leo care if the company's long-term strategic positions are weakened as long as he maximizes his compensation package?
Most of the commenters in this thread feel, as you do, that CEOs need to be paid a shit-ton of money, or else they would never work for Apple, but the rank-and-file do not need to be paid a lot of money, because Apple is such a great company to work for. Can you explain the discontinuity? Why is Apple great to work for as a peon, but terrible to work for as a CEO? Why does extra money paid to a CEO definitely and absolutely result in a better CEO, but extra money paid for employees won't get them better employees?
Keep in mind the studies that show highly paid CEOs underperform low-paid ones when you answer.