Tim Cook received $378 million for 2011 but will have to stay at Apple to collect most of it

posted by Alan F. / Apr 09, 2012, 7:14 PM

Tim Cook received $378 million for 2011 but will have to stay at Apple to collect most of it

The New York Times breaks down Tim Cook's 2011 pay

Sure, Apple CEO Tim Cook is rich, but you won't see him with the deep pocketed crew on Shark Tank; at least, not yet. According to the New York Times, $376 million of the $378 million that Cook received for his performance last year was awarded in the form of a one-time stock grant. But before Cook can start dialing his broker, the grant does not fully vest unless Cook stays with Apple for ten years. According to the Times, half the grant vests in 2016 while the remainder vests in 2021.

The CEO's 2011 salary of $900,000 would make most of us very happy, but is below the median pay for a CEO in the States which is a whopping $14.4 million. With other compensation, the Apple CEO took home $1.8 million in 2011. Including the stock award, Cook is the highest compensated CEO in the country. Oracle head man Larry Ellison comes in second with $77.6 million followed by Cook's former co-worker Ron Johnson. Johnson, who once headed Apple's retail stores, now works for J.C. Penney where he took in $53.3 million.

In a time when CEO pay is usually criticized by shareholders, Apple's amazing rise (the stock made a new all-time high today) will usually guarantee that the company's stockholders remain silent on the question of executive pay. After all, the main complaint about high executive pay is that it is given out to those running companies with a poorly acting stock. As long as stockholders continue to make money with Apple's stock, there will be no one complaining about how much the tech titan's executives are making.

source: NYTimes via Electronista

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33 Comments

1. khiko

Posts: 8; Member since: Apr 07, 2012

:) wooooooo....

posted on Apr 09, 2012, 8:22 PM 2

2. remixfa

Posts: 14605; Member since: Dec 19, 2008

you know.. honestly, im surprised his actual pay is so low. thats a very positive move on apple's part. His money is 98% tied up in long term company performance.. and at that payscale, bad performance means millions lost. That actually gives me a little hope that MAYBE apple wont tank, but I still think they probably will... at least by its current standards. Apple will be around for a long time regardless.

posted on Apr 09, 2012, 8:24 PM 6

3. ivanko34

Posts: 617; Member since: Sep 04, 2011

He is as poor as the people of foxcon

posted on Apr 09, 2012, 9:12 PM 2

23. PAPINYC

Posts: 2315; Member since: Jul 30, 2011

Yes, he is the biGGest iSlÅve of them all.

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 8:36 AM 1

4. eaxvac

Posts: 328; Member since: Jan 15, 2012

Oh what a tool. While Steve Ballmer is enjoying away with his 10s of billions by shouting "Developers , developersss developerrrs!"

posted on Apr 09, 2012, 9:15 PM 0

5. darktranquillity

Posts: 285; Member since: Feb 28, 2012

Which other firm needs this copycat junior anyway?

posted on Apr 09, 2012, 9:32 PM 1

6. cripton805

Posts: 1485; Member since: Mar 18, 2012

Wow. They even jip their CEO. They paid him in stock? What if the company fails within the next 10 years? What if he dies? Sucks for him. Maybe it was on his contract.

posted on Apr 09, 2012, 10:07 PM 0

8. Joshing4fun

Posts: 1244; Member since: Aug 13, 2010

Jip their CEO? Trust me, this man is by no means going hungry. Plus what exactly does he (or any CEO) do to deserve the amount he is even getting? We all have good ideas here and honestly most of us could probably do his job just as well as he does.

posted on Apr 09, 2012, 10:29 PM 1

7. sgogeta4

Posts: 394; Member since: Feb 02, 2011

CEOs still make disgustingly way too much money. No person deserves that kind of money for a job.

posted on Apr 09, 2012, 10:18 PM 1

9. bossmt_2

Posts: 459; Member since: Oct 13, 2009

It's really not hard to see why communism started. Every CEO in the world is overpaid.

posted on Apr 09, 2012, 10:53 PM 2

10. remixfa

Posts: 14605; Member since: Dec 19, 2008

that sort of socialist BS is why we are becoming so messed up as a country.

posted on Apr 09, 2012, 11:05 PM 2

11. bossmt_2

Posts: 459; Member since: Oct 13, 2009

There's a billion reasons that this country is "messed up" and people questioning CEO pay is very very far down the list. Corruption is first and foremost.

posted on Apr 09, 2012, 11:40 PM 2

12. Penny

Posts: 1844; Member since: Feb 04, 2011

@sgogeta4 Remember, many CEOs are founders of their business. They aren't making money for a job, they are making money for a business. 900k for a company that is making as much revenue & profit as Apple is actually comparatively very low, and very reasonable. Anyway, what else would you suggest they do with the money, if they are already pouring money into R&D, expansion, and operating expenses? Give that extra money to the government? If employees' good work makes a company successful, and it IS what makes a company successful, then those employees should enjoy the fruits of their labor. Do they deserve the money? Well, they have certainly earned it. Do impoverished people work just as hard but remain impoverished? Sometimes, yes. But the nature of the work is still different, and the unfortunate circumstances of one individual should not burden another without cause. There is nothing just about that. Further, earning that much money does not preclude the individual from using the money to help those in need. Some of these high earning individuals - who you say do not deserve that kind of money - do more good with the excess money than would have been achieved if the money had gone elsewhere. Being charitable in this manner is a free choice of the individual, and the motivation to be so charitable may often be a direct result of the individual earning this extra money. And let's not even get into the potential economic repercussions of preventing employers from being free to make decisions on how they want to incentivize their employees, or the psychological effects of placing a maximum on the incentive that an employee can receive, thus incentivizing the employee to always do less than that maximum...

posted on Apr 09, 2012, 11:48 PM 1

19. sgogeta4

Posts: 394; Member since: Feb 02, 2011

You are correct in that employees' should get paid for doing a good job, but the CEO is only one employee. I'm not talking about his actual salary but the difference in the lowest paid employee vs. the highest. Yes, some of these people do a lot of good, but a lot of the richest people also do not. Instead of giving one person the power to choose whether or not he/she can help others, why not do that from the beginning.

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 7:32 AM 0

28. remixfa

Posts: 14605; Member since: Dec 19, 2008

why shouldn't they? many CEOs put their personal welfare and property on the line to get the business started.. came up with the bulk if the companies original ideas.. and the vast Majority work long high stress hours. the greater the risk the greater the reward. why shouldnt tthere be a large disparity between that guy and the bottom worker thst has taken no risk and not contributed anything other than the labor he signed up for. don't confuse the bulk of CEOs with the trash u hear about on TV with CEOs trashing a company while making millions. they are the minority. that's like saying everyone in new jersey looks and acts like snookie. you want to punish all CEOs for the actions of a very select few. if you reduce the compensation then you reduce the amount of people willing to take the risks.. which means less jobs for everyone.

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 1:45 PM 2

29. Penny

Posts: 1844; Member since: Feb 04, 2011

@ sgogeta4 (Comment 19) I understand where you are coming from sgogeta. I also agree that the disparity between what the highest paid employee earns and what the lowest paid employee earns can sometimes be beyond justification. However, understand my perspective, which is that of somebody involved in a small business/startup. As remixfa acutely pointed out in Comment 28, many CEOs put everything on the line for the businesses they start. Every major company you see today (even Apple) started with somebody who took the huge risk necessary (not just money, but years of your life). I personally have been working at a start-up for over 1.5 years now. I have received $0 so far, and every other executive is taking $0 as well. We are each doing the jobs that a normal company would hire 3 or 4 people to do. We are each working hours that leave us with time for little else in life. We deal with more stress than anybody who works a routine 9 to 5 job. None of us plan to take excessive salaries down the road because we are all committed to growing the company. All of us acknowledge that we will be paying the employees under us more than we will be paying ourselves for the first few years. We don't even know if we will still be in the company by the time we are able to really get paid, because small business owners are often at the mercy of investors. The point is this: we are making these sacrifices to get a business off of the ground because we understand that it is OUR business. NOBODY has the right to come in dictate to the CEO how the money must be spent in the business that he created. Anybody that comes in and works for us will be paid properly, and as dictated by the market, not by regulations. If that employee were to come in and compare his salary to that of the CEO several years down the line, it would inevitably bring out the greed in anybody. But he's not the one who created the business, and he's therefore not entitled to make that comparison.

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 2:26 PM 1

30. remixfa

Posts: 14605; Member since: Dec 19, 2008

exactly. you amost never hear about owners and individual operators complain about wage disparity. regular employees have no idea what it takes to be the CEO of a small business which is what the vast majority OF businesses are. I did nearly a decade of independent unit operations for a small franchise, supervision, new location set ups.. and more than my fair share of 100+ hour weeks. the few peeps that were above me were there just as long or longer. you may eventually make a fat paycheck if you work really hard as CEO, but don't ever think they spend all day on the golf course. the sacrifice to self, family, and property to get most businesses off the ground is tremendous. no paid hourly employee will ever come close to that. thus if the sacrifice is great, the potential reward should be as well. until you are willing to make that kind of sacrifice and risk your family and property, don't ever say they make too much .. or u make too little.

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 3:26 PM 1

17. dkpitman

Posts: 35; Member since: Mar 24, 2011

@sgogeta4 are you saying that Cook's pay falls outside the rule of "equal and voluntary exchange" that a free market is founded upon? is $1.8 million to maintain the $28.27 billion in revenue generated in Q4 too much? Cook's annual earnings were only 0.006% of just that quarter's revenue; a very small piece of the pie. what percent do you think the CEO of a company should make? lets keep in mind that with the his tax rate of 35% would bring him down to $585,000, and the extra $900,000 @ 15% is $765,000. Meaning before California income tax, Cook is bringing home $1.35 million, or .005% of Q4's revenue.

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 3:57 AM 1

18. remixfa

Posts: 14605; Member since: Dec 19, 2008

the only people that whine about someone's pay scale are ignorant and jealous. period. you get paid what the market will bear. And its extremely surprising to me that a company that has more money sitting in the bank than THE US GOVERNMENT gets paid less than many government employees. He gets paid only a little more than that las Vegas shindig that is all over the news. Most CEOs pay themselves 10x that for a company 1/10th the size, so I'd say apple is being very frugal. If you want to whine about payscales, go look at politicians. The president makes 400k a year, but yet somehow clinton ended up making about 10 million extra in office. Wonder where that came from.

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 7:16 AM 2

21. sgogeta4

Posts: 394; Member since: Feb 02, 2011

Read bossmt_2's answer to your question. Not specifically separating Apple out nor am I discounting how little he gets paid relative to the company. Just going to restate my initial post: CEOs still make disgustingly way too much money.

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 7:37 AM 1

31. dkpitman

Posts: 35; Member since: Mar 24, 2011

Communism doesn't have to do with opportunities being fair. It's about controlling people, wiping out a middle class, and creating extreme wealth for the those who govern, and poverty for those who are governed. The only way for a market to be fair is through VOLUNTARY and equal exchange. An employee agrees to be paid (voluntarily) at a certain wage that (s)he and the employer agree to be equal to the work produced. People don't work against their will in the U.S. This is the only way for a situation to be fair, or else fair is decided by the person "holding the gun." Could you believe taking a vacation and you're sitting at the table about to order and you think, "man I would like to get another mai tai but I've hit my limit of 2 per day (that's what people/elitist group thinks is fair) ... oh man that steak looks good too, but I can't afford to get it ... maybe if I could make my company more successful I could earn more ... no people don't think that would be fair." It sounds ridiculous because it is. It's okay when it happens to someone else, as long as it's not you.

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 5:09 PM 0

20. sgogeta4

Posts: 394; Member since: Feb 02, 2011

Please tell me that you don't honestly believe that he pays that amount in taxes...

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 7:34 AM 1

22. remixfa

Posts: 14605; Member since: Dec 19, 2008

if thats his paycheck, he sure does. and since he lives in California he pays a lot more than that after all the state taxes. The reason many super rich get so little in taxes is because they pay themselves out of dividends from stocks and such. Thats only a 15% tax rate. Your actual paycheck taxes are much higher. you can restate it all you want, but that statement stems from jealousy and nothing else. If someone were to offer you a million a year, you would jump on it in a heart beat.

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 8:05 AM 1

32. dkpitman

Posts: 35; Member since: Mar 24, 2011

@ sgogeta4 I don't think you understand taxes :(

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 5:15 PM 0

13. bbblader

Posts: 590; Member since: Oct 24, 2011

bill gates: I want do do that too: 6mins and 18 seconds later: done

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 12:33 AM 0

14. ry_ry_69

Posts: 7; Member since: Apr 10, 2012

tim cook your somking hott :) love looking at you

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 12:55 AM 0

26. jmoita2

Posts: 930; Member since: Dec 23, 2011

Easy, now...

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 11:17 AM 1

15. android_hitman unregistered

keep buying apple products ...

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 1:22 AM 1

16. sahebaz512

Posts: 1; Member since: Mar 22, 2012

nice...

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 1:25 AM 0

24. Republican

Posts: 99; Member since: Apr 05, 2012

In my opinion he is underpaid. And quit with the envy already. He generates jobs for the poor such as yourselves who criticize him. You are lucky there are corporate heroes such as him who let some of his wealth trickle down on to you. The man is a role model. A great example of the Free Markets at work.

posted on Apr 10, 2012, 10:11 AM 1

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