It sounds like their biggest complaint is that the compensation vests too quickly, which means Tim Cook doesn't have an incentive to set Apple up for long term success. They want the vesting to be longer to incentivize him.
But given that his net worth is already $2B, most of which is Apple stock, it seems like he's already incentivized to set Apple up for long term success, one because he has so much stock, and two because he's clearly not working for the comp, but for the love of the game.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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].
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.
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.
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.
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).
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?
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 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.
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".
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.
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.
This is a silly take, professional sports people definitely love the game and don't turn down big pay cheques.
If you are world-class at something and people will pay you to do it, why wouldn't you get paid for it? Just because you want to get paid doesn't mean you don't love it.
It is very unlikely that most of Tim Cook's net worth is tied up in Apple. There is no reason for him to hold on to $1B+ of vested stock in a single company (especially not his own) instead of diversifying.
Mmh, you might be surprised how many tech execs are not diversified at all.
First, commitment and single-mindedness, but also it's inefficient to harvest capital gains (and pay tax on it) if you don't have to; you have to make a 20% delta in the stock you exchange for to make up for it.
Those tech execs are founders who own like 40% of their growth-stage company and have limitless upside. Tim Cook owns 0.01% of Apple, and his stock isn't going to see exponential growth no matter how well he performs.
But given that his net worth is already $2B, most of which is Apple stock, it seems like he's already incentivized to set Apple up for long term success, one because he has so much stock, and two because he's clearly not working for the comp, but for the love of the game.