Doesn’t seem crazy unreasonable to think compensation for executives with that kind of impact on the company to take home some very small percentage of the worth of the company as take home pay. If they were general counsel of a $1B company and made $270k, no one would comment on it. The company is 1000x more valuable and much more likely to be involved in litigation.
Would $1M/yr at a $10B company make sense, $5M? What about a $100B company? How many of those are there?
Apple is a $1T company. That’s an insane size. Very difficult to easily reason about.
How much per year do you think Elon Musk pays his personal counsel? Bill Gates? You might be surprised…
"General" in the word "General Counsel" doesn't mean it's doing generic daily legal works. It means very similar to the one in "General Manager", which is a common title for SVP in that they're in charge for everything in their area. It's very close to C-suite for the legal department.
But then are you allowed to have a written policy that says "only white people can be board members" or "only men can be board members", because they aren't employees? I'm honestly asking, I'm curious how this works!
Yeah, I don't know how it works outside ADEA, which scope is limited to employees. It's interesting to dig into the case when board members are actually employees, so I just skimmed through the law and I found that ADEA does not protect bona fide executive or high policy-making role. Probably discrimination against other protected classes are prohibited by other laws.
> Why isn't this considered illegal age discrimination?
Because it's based on real risks and limitations associated with advanced age. I remember during the 2008 election when John McCain's age was brought up. There were survey's the showed the voters most concerned about his age were older voters, since they understand the decline that comes with aging firsthand.
> Former Vice President Al Gore will be departing from Apple’s board of directors after a 21-year run due to the company’s mandatory retirement age, the tech company said today.
So there doesn’t seem there’s been a disagreement or anything of the sort.
> Why might Apple have a mandatory retirement age? Interesting that you can be too old to be in this position but not too old to be elected President.
This is pretty common in business, at least in the U.S. Most decent-sized companies understand the risks of associated with a geriatric executive. The fact that our government doesn't understand this is a bit scary.
We are free to pass a constitutional amendment that limits the age of the president or any other government position. Why act like there is some prohibiting this?
The median age of Congress is 59 (58 for the House, 65 for the Senate). Good luck getting the 2/3rds needed to pass a constitutional amendment when over half of the Senate is 65 and older, and over a third of the House is 65 and over.
Doubt any of these people are going to want to legislate themselves out of their jobs or the possibility of becoming president.
That's fine, plenty of other people can run on that platform if people will actually vote for it. We aren't slaves to our congresspeople. In fact, they shouldn't be making any decisions that don't reflect the interests of their constituents.
Ok, but even if some politicians run on a platform of capping the age for eligibility to run for congress or the presidency, getting 2/3rds of the Senate and 2/3rds of the House to actually vote for it is near impossible, especially in today’s polarized (frequently gridlocked) political climate. But also, regardless of how popular this might be publicly, most politicians don’t run on platforms that curb their own power.
The last time we amended the constitution was 32 years ago, and that was more than 202 years after the amendment was originally proposed and approved by Congress. This amendment effectively does not allow Congress to get a pay raise until their next elected term. Unsurprisingly, when this amendment was brought to the public’s attention in the 1980’s, Congress majorly pushed back about it. But the amendment was gaining popularity publicly and it was ratified by 2/3rds of the states, so congress had no choice but to accept the amendment as valid. This may have been otherwise impossible to pass if congress hadn’t already approved the amendment over 200 years ago in 1789.
Just because Congress should be a certain way, does not in fact make it reality. Congress frequently makes unpopular decisions. And when you have some representatives that have an equal say in the vote that represents a fraction of the number a people of another representative, what the majority of people want doesn’t really matter politically in most cases.
Now you’re right about one thing, if this platform is popular enough, there still might be a possible path forward to achieve a constitutional amendment. But it’s far from a certainty and more likely a long shot at this point. It could take decades or more until the amendment is both approved and ratified, if it’s even politically possible at the moment. It’s not as simple as, if the people want it, they can vote for it; because that is just not the current reality in American politics.
> Apple CEO Tim Cook will take a more than 40% pay cut this year from a year earlier as the company adjusts how it calculates his compensation partly based on a recommendation from Cook himself.
Why was a politician (Al Gore was former vice president) on the board of a tech company? I have seen this before with Kissinger at Elizabeth Holmes's failed company. I think OpenAI was also looking at a famous politician joining their new board.
Is there a reason TECH companies want old very-likely-tech-illiterate politicians to join their board? Is the only reason to be more cozy with washington?
Reading that Newt Gingrich quote was amusing. Basically one of Gore’s principal political opponents came out and said “yeah Gore was the guy who did the most in
Congress to make the Internet happen.” You don’t see that kind of bipartisan praise very often these days, at least not in Congress.
At certain scale, government regulation will be a significant risk for business and you need some connection to the govt. Politicians tend to have the one. Plus, those people are actually good at resolving political conflicts inside the board, so it's also risk mitigation for something like the whole OpenAI drama.
"CEO Tim Cook made $63.2 million in 2023, down 36% from $99.4 million in 2022." - stupid question, but what can one do with such money? These people are sick.
Someone like Tim Cook works basically 24x7, 365 days a year, has made hundreds of billions in profit, increased the value of his company by like a trillion dollars, and gets $60-90M for the trouble. One can argue that's too much money, sure, but then you have the multibillionaire class above him (say Steve Ballmer as a random example, and plenty of large Apple shareholders like Buffet I'm sure) who have done absolutely nothing all year and still seen their net worth go up by tens of billions of dollars. Looking at these people it's Tim Cook who should be complaining about being underpaid.
I find it hard to believe Tim Cook does not sleep. Anyway, it's much easier to work all the time when you're obscenely rich because you can pay people to take your problems away, like cooking dinner or taking the kids to school. Tim Cook doesn't get home late because of a cancelled train and then have to do chores.
>365 days a year
I also find it hard to believe Tim Cook does not take holidays whatsoever.
>has made hundreds of billions in profit
No, the company made hundreds of billions in profit under his direction. It is impossible to know how much better or worse that figure would be with someone else at the helm.
I don't deny that Tim Cook is valuable to Apple, but nobody is irreplaceable. The world is full of intelligent people who could do the same job for a tiny fraction of his salary.
> Looking at these people it's Tim Cook who should be complaining about being underpaid.
This is why it never makes sense to compare yourself or your worth to others. Everyone knows this, yet we do it all the time. The rat race doesn’t end.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 109 ms ] threadWhy does the GC make this much? That's 27K billable hours at $1K/hr. Is it because she knows where the bodies are burried?
Probably due to the vast scope of responsibilities and ramifications if something goes wrong?
I can't imagine that being in charge of all of Apple's legal concerns is a walk in the park.
Would $1M/yr at a $10B company make sense, $5M? What about a $100B company? How many of those are there?
Apple is a $1T company. That’s an insane size. Very difficult to easily reason about.
How much per year do you think Elon Musk pays his personal counsel? Bill Gates? You might be surprised…
"General" in the word "General Counsel" doesn't mean it's doing generic daily legal works. It means very similar to the one in "General Manager", which is a common title for SVP in that they're in charge for everything in their area. It's very close to C-suite for the legal department.
Why isn't this considered illegal age discrimination?
https://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm?volume=92&page=189
There’s actually a fascinating bit of history behind this which I learned about on a recent podcast:
https://www.si.edu/sidedoor/wrinkled-radicals
https://www.congress.gov/bill/99th-congress/house-bill/4154#....
Because it's based on real risks and limitations associated with advanced age. I remember during the 2008 election when John McCain's age was brought up. There were survey's the showed the voters most concerned about his age were older voters, since they understand the decline that comes with aging firsthand.
> Former Vice President Al Gore will be departing from Apple’s board of directors after a 21-year run due to the company’s mandatory retirement age, the tech company said today.
So there doesn’t seem there’s been a disagreement or anything of the sort.
Apple is a private entity; I understand they are publicly traded, but not a govt entity. They can make their own rules for their efficiency
This is pretty common in business, at least in the U.S. Most decent-sized companies understand the risks of associated with a geriatric executive. The fact that our government doesn't understand this is a bit scary.
Maybe 1 in a million outliers can stay razor sharp beyond that, but it's not determinable who falls into that category in advance.
Doubt any of these people are going to want to legislate themselves out of their jobs or the possibility of becoming president.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_to_propose_amendm...
The last time we amended the constitution was 32 years ago, and that was more than 202 years after the amendment was originally proposed and approved by Congress. This amendment effectively does not allow Congress to get a pay raise until their next elected term. Unsurprisingly, when this amendment was brought to the public’s attention in the 1980’s, Congress majorly pushed back about it. But the amendment was gaining popularity publicly and it was ratified by 2/3rds of the states, so congress had no choice but to accept the amendment as valid. This may have been otherwise impossible to pass if congress hadn’t already approved the amendment over 200 years ago in 1789.
Just because Congress should be a certain way, does not in fact make it reality. Congress frequently makes unpopular decisions. And when you have some representatives that have an equal say in the vote that represents a fraction of the number a people of another representative, what the majority of people want doesn’t really matter politically in most cases.
Now you’re right about one thing, if this platform is popular enough, there still might be a possible path forward to achieve a constitutional amendment. But it’s far from a certainty and more likely a long shot at this point. It could take decades or more until the amendment is both approved and ratified, if it’s even politically possible at the moment. It’s not as simple as, if the people want it, they can vote for it; because that is just not the current reality in American politics.
https://apnews.com/article/technology-apple-inc-tim-cook-bus...
Is there a reason TECH companies want old very-likely-tech-illiterate politicians to join their board? Is the only reason to be more cozy with washington?
But more usually, companies want politicians on the board because they have political connections which they can tap to the company’s advantage.
¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_activism_of_Al_G...
² https://www.apple.com/environment/
What could you do? Fund 63 charities. Buy a small one person condo in New York.
Making money doesn't make you sick. Calling someone sick might.
I find it hard to believe Tim Cook does not sleep. Anyway, it's much easier to work all the time when you're obscenely rich because you can pay people to take your problems away, like cooking dinner or taking the kids to school. Tim Cook doesn't get home late because of a cancelled train and then have to do chores.
>365 days a year
I also find it hard to believe Tim Cook does not take holidays whatsoever.
>has made hundreds of billions in profit
No, the company made hundreds of billions in profit under his direction. It is impossible to know how much better or worse that figure would be with someone else at the helm.
I don't deny that Tim Cook is valuable to Apple, but nobody is irreplaceable. The world is full of intelligent people who could do the same job for a tiny fraction of his salary.
This is why it never makes sense to compare yourself or your worth to others. Everyone knows this, yet we do it all the time. The rat race doesn’t end.