5 ms·

Counter-example: AAPL pays dividends and is widely viewed as innovative.

by asaph 8y ago

enitihas 8y ago
AAPL isn't really largely owned by any of the executives. In comparison, Page, Brin and Schmidt at Google own a large chunk of stock. Also AAPL isn't trying to be as diverse as GOOG is trying to be. GOOG is trying to compete in all sorts of markets.
- rwmj 8y ago
  Wouldn't these share-owning execs also want dividends? Get their hands on some of that cash pile without diluting their holding. (I suppose the answer will be something to do with tax treatment, and if so I'd say that in this case the taxes are all wrong and should be simply a fixed proportion of income however it is gained or earned).
  - enitihas 8y ago
    Well, they may, but they might be more content with long term capital growth. The thing is GOOG isn't as much vulnerable to the pressure of activist investors for dividend (like Carl Icahn in Apple's case), as much as AAPL is.
scarface74 8y ago
What big capital intensive businesses is Apple investing in? These days it seems like all of thier focus is on chip design and software. Most of the heavy lifting and capital intensive costs are outsourced. I don’t think they can just throw more people at intellectual based innovation. There are only so many people in the world that they can hire and hiring more people brings its own issues - the whole Mythical Man Month. I would imagine even prototyping and developing new hardware would be done by a relatively small team.
maneesh 8y ago
I would disagree that Apple is viewed as innovative. Granted, this is anecdotal based around people I know, but Apple is widely considered as non-innovative and resting on its iPhone laurels -- at least since Jobs passed away.
- scarface74 8y ago
  I'm not going to be crazy enough to say that there will never be anything bigger than the phone, but can you see anything that any company can do in the next five years that is more ubiquitous than the smart phone? 75% of the world's population has a cell phone (https://www.rferl.org/a/report-says-75-percent-of-worlds-population-have-mobile-phones/24648234.html https://www.rferl.org/a/report-says-75-percent-of-worlds-pop...). No matter what any consumer electronic company introduces in the next 5-10 years, I doubt that it will have more impact than the consumer smart phone trend the iPhone started. What company has been innovative in the consumer electronic space in the past decade? No matter what Apple does, I don't realistically see Apple or any other company introducing a consumer electronic product that is as successful (revenue wise) in the next decade.
  - maneesh 8y ago
    I'm extremely extremely biased, but I run a company called Pavlok [1], with a goal to be more ubiquitous than the phone by 2030 (not quite 5 years). We build technology to help people change habits, with instantaneous positive and negative feedback, and a digital currency called Volts[2] that rewards and pays people to do good habits. Our goal is to sell the product in the initial phases (next 5-7 years), and eventually give them away to everyone in the world. One of our core products (unreleased) attaches directly to iphones and android -- I can't give too many details, but it becomes part of your phone. Again, I'm extremely biased. But they say the best way to predict the future is to create it, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [1] https://pavlok.com https://pavlok.com [2] https://pavlok.com/volts https://pavlok.com/volts

Counter-example: AAPL pays dividends and is widely viewed as innovative.

by asaph 8y ago

Counter-example: AAPL pays dividends and is widely viewed as innovative.

AAPL isn't really largely owned by any of the executives. In comparison, Page, Brin and Schmidt at Google own a large chunk of stock. Also AAPL isn't trying to be as diverse as GOOG is trying to be. GOOG is trying to compete in all sorts of markets.

rwmj 8y ago
Wouldn't these share-owning execs also want dividends? Get their hands on some of that cash pile without diluting their holding. (I suppose the answer will be something to do with tax treatment, and if so I'd say that in this case the taxes are all wrong and should be simply a fixed proportion of income however it is gained or earned).
- enitihas 8y ago
  Well, they may, but they might be more content with long term capital growth. The thing is GOOG isn't as much vulnerable to the pressure of activist investors for dividend (like Carl Icahn in Apple's case), as much as AAPL is.

scarface74 8y ago

What big capital intensive businesses is Apple investing in? These days it seems like all of thier focus is on chip design and software. Most of the heavy lifting and capital intensive costs are outsourced. I don’t think they can just throw more people at intellectual based innovation. There are only so many people in the world that they can hire and hiring more people brings its own issues - the whole Mythical Man Month. I would imagine even prototyping and developing new hardware would be done by a relatively small team.

maneesh 8y ago

I would disagree that Apple is viewed as innovative. Granted, this is anecdotal based around people I know, but Apple is widely considered as non-innovative and resting on its iPhone laurels -- at least since Jobs passed away.

scarface74 8y ago
I'm not going to be crazy enough to say that there will never be anything bigger than the phone, but can you see anything that any company can do in the next five years that is more ubiquitous than the smart phone? 75% of the world's population has a cell phone (https://www.rferl.org/a/report-says-75-percent-of-worlds-population-have-mobile-phones/24648234.html https://www.rferl.org/a/report-says-75-percent-of-worlds-pop...). No matter what any consumer electronic company introduces in the next 5-10 years, I doubt that it will have more impact than the consumer smart phone trend the iPhone started. What company has been innovative in the consumer electronic space in the past decade? No matter what Apple does, I don't realistically see Apple or any other company introducing a consumer electronic product that is as successful (revenue wise) in the next decade.
- maneesh 8y ago
  I'm extremely extremely biased, but I run a company called Pavlok [1], with a goal to be more ubiquitous than the phone by 2030 (not quite 5 years). We build technology to help people change habits, with instantaneous positive and negative feedback, and a digital currency called Volts[2] that rewards and pays people to do good habits. Our goal is to sell the product in the initial phases (next 5-7 years), and eventually give them away to everyone in the world. One of our core products (unreleased) attaches directly to iphones and android -- I can't give too many details, but it becomes part of your phone. Again, I'm extremely biased. But they say the best way to predict the future is to create it, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [1] https://pavlok.com https://pavlok.com [2] https://pavlok.com/volts https://pavlok.com/volts