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That's why it is the richest company. In this world you are unlikely going to get rich by being honest and decent.

akudha 6y ago
Are you sure about that? Companies like Costco are doing well, they seem to be better in treating their employees than say, Walmart.
- NineStarPoint 6y ago
  Consider that on ~40 billion revenue, Costco makes ~1 billion profit. Compare that to Apple making ~60 billion income and ~11 billion profit. Apple brings in only 1.5X more money than costco but makes 11X more profit. Sure Costco makes a lot of money, but Apple makes way more money by employing these sorts of practices. There’s rich, and then there’s apple rich.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    Costco, to be fair, is a reseller. Totally different business model. They are, after all, selling Apple devices.
    - hajimemash 6y ago
      Haha when you put it like that, it helps Apple's case. They're only making less than 10x more than Costco for all the serious technical innovation vs large-scale reselling.
      - notriddle 6y ago
        Apple doesn’t have to deal with perishables.
  - gverrilla 6y ago
    very different business models and markets.. apple could be gigantic without this kind of manufacturing model, though. it's probably the rat race of management looking for carreer progression based on metrics and/or bonus. disgusting
- NicoJuicy 6y ago
  Costco isn't the richest, Walmart either. Retail has thin margins.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  Costco shareholders are 't doing as well as.. Walmart, which is the point.
- Aunche 6y ago
  Costco has a different business model from Walmart. Their revenue per employee is over twice that of Walmart. They keep labor costs low by employing as few people as possible. As such, they need to hire the best workers and pay them competitive wages and benefits. When Walmart wants the best workers, they also treat their workers well like with truckers and researchers at Walmartlabs. This is why the meme about Walmart is subsidized by the government is completely preposterous. With Walmart was forced to, they could restructure their company to support the Costco model and lay off a million people.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    > With Walmart was forced to, they could restructure their company to support the Costco model and lay off a million people. I'm not so sure it's that simple. Costco has higher revenue per employee because the price per item is much higher. The customers who can afford to shop like this are comparatively much wealthier than those who shop at Walmart. That being said, Walmart does exactly this with their Sams Club locations. It's certainly a profitable business model, but the market is smaller than the customer base that Walmart serves.
    - Aunche 6y ago
      Granted, I haven't been to a Costco in several years, but I thought the primary appeal of Costco was their low prices. I doubt that people want to drive to a store in the middle nowhere where everything is sold in bulk, on pallets, unless if they were getting a good deal off of it.
      - kube-system 6y ago
        Costco has low prices per unit of product. But they are sold in large quantities so price per SKU is high. This is why Costco has low labor costs. A cashier scanning one average item at Costco is something like $20 in revenue, but at Walmart it is something like $5 revenue -- for the same human labor. (I remember seeing real numbers for this at one point but I can't find them.) While a middle income person might be able to buy a month's worth of groceries at one time, and fill their freezer and pantry, lower income people often do not have the cash flow to afford making grocery trips that large. Even if the unit price is slightly higher at Walmart, they have no other option, because they can't afford to buy $50 of beef at one time if their entire shopping budget $50.
dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
This is a dangerous oversimplification. Yes, you can increase the chances of getting rich faster by being dishonest, and in the cases it works, you can get spectacular results (like early Microsoft) or you can get caught and finish in jail. But many businesspeople get good results by a combination of already having some initial capital, the right idea in the right time, some talent and willingness to work and take some risks to make things happen. Many of these don't ever consider anything unethical. But of course only the worst cases get publicized. I call this idea dangerous, because it stigmatizes all successful people, not just the bad ones. Accepting this kind of collective responsibility is as repulsive as racist statements.
oefrha 6y ago
It’s not like Apple is an outlier and non-richest companies are any better. Electronics manufacturing, as well as many other kinds of manufacturing (e.g., clothing which is even more notorious), operate on razor thin margins. Guess how much you can realistically pay workers when you make a grand total of <$5[1] on a $1k device? Not gonna come close to U.S. minimum wage, that’s for sure. Anyway, this kind of exploitation is part of how Western companies accumulate wealth and it partially funds your first world salaries and lifestyles. [1] The higher estimates I’ve seen are always <$10, and lower estimates are way under.
- esyir 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure apple is an outlier, and their margins are hardly razor thin. The iphone's margin has been estimated anywhere at about 60-75%. This argument might apply to commodity grade electronics, but not to apple.
  - oefrha 6y ago
    Manufacturing margins are razor thin. The brand names pocket all the profits, the people producing commodity parts and assembling them get nothing, which is my entire point. And no, Apple is not an outlier in that regard, even though they pocket more than HP, Dell, etc.
crumbshot 6y ago
Indeed, a decent company would split all its profits amongst its workers, commensurate with the value they created. Rather than handing it over to shareholders and investors who, by and large, have done no work to earn it. But as you say, that's not the world we live in.
- randomdata 6y ago
  It is essentially the world we live in, save that the workers usually want their share of the profits before they are made, and so the determination of how much profitability there is to be and their commensurate value within is built on a best guess from incomplete information. It is not always that way. Sometimes the workers are willing to wait to see how much profit is actually made before receiving their agreed upon share, but there is a good chance they will end up with nothing in the end, and so the aforementioned model, which carries far less risk for the worker, has become the most popular way.
  - crumbshot 6y ago
    It's not the world we live in though, workers are rarely paid from the profits in the same sort of way shareholders are. Ideally, workers would be paid a wage for their time, and later have the profits of their work shared amongst them. After all, they are the ones responsible for generating this wealth.
    - loeg 6y ago
      You're free to buy as big a stake in your employer's stock as you want, and reap the profits. The point I'm trying to make is: what is a fair % of Apple's profits for an individual worker, and how much would it cost that worker to buy in as a worker-owner? Back of the envelope: $2.13T market cap, 137k employees: $15.5 million buy-in cost per employee-owner (~123k shares each). Dividends per share 2020: $2.615, or $323k/yr per worker. Please check my math, but I think I have the orders of magnitude right. Personally, if you have a spare $15.5 million, I'd recommend a more diversified portfolio of broad-market low-fee index funds and (IMO) early retirement.
zouhair 6y ago
You want to be rich? You have to take money where it is...the pockets of poor people.
- ARandomerDude 6y ago
  Poor, by definition, is the opposite of where the money is.
- wait_a_minute 6y ago
  That's nonsense. I've been growing my net worth quarter after quarter and I'm not pickpocketing any poor people.

Are you sure about that? Companies like Costco are doing well, they seem to be better in treating their employees than say, Walmart.

NineStarPoint 6y ago
Consider that on ~40 billion revenue, Costco makes ~1 billion profit. Compare that to Apple making ~60 billion income and ~11 billion profit. Apple brings in only 1.5X more money than costco but makes 11X more profit. Sure Costco makes a lot of money, but Apple makes way more money by employing these sorts of practices. There’s rich, and then there’s apple rich.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  Costco, to be fair, is a reseller. Totally different business model. They are, after all, selling Apple devices.
  - hajimemash 6y ago
    Haha when you put it like that, it helps Apple's case. They're only making less than 10x more than Costco for all the serious technical innovation vs large-scale reselling.
    - notriddle 6y ago
      Apple doesn’t have to deal with perishables.
- gverrilla 6y ago
  very different business models and markets.. apple could be gigantic without this kind of manufacturing model, though. it's probably the rat race of management looking for carreer progression based on metrics and/or bonus. disgusting
NicoJuicy 6y ago
Costco isn't the richest, Walmart either. Retail has thin margins.
srtjstjsj 6y ago
Costco shareholders are 't doing as well as.. Walmart, which is the point.
Aunche 6y ago
Costco has a different business model from Walmart. Their revenue per employee is over twice that of Walmart. They keep labor costs low by employing as few people as possible. As such, they need to hire the best workers and pay them competitive wages and benefits. When Walmart wants the best workers, they also treat their workers well like with truckers and researchers at Walmartlabs. This is why the meme about Walmart is subsidized by the government is completely preposterous. With Walmart was forced to, they could restructure their company to support the Costco model and lay off a million people.
- kube-system 6y ago
  > With Walmart was forced to, they could restructure their company to support the Costco model and lay off a million people. I'm not so sure it's that simple. Costco has higher revenue per employee because the price per item is much higher. The customers who can afford to shop like this are comparatively much wealthier than those who shop at Walmart. That being said, Walmart does exactly this with their Sams Club locations. It's certainly a profitable business model, but the market is smaller than the customer base that Walmart serves.
  - Aunche 6y ago
    Granted, I haven't been to a Costco in several years, but I thought the primary appeal of Costco was their low prices. I doubt that people want to drive to a store in the middle nowhere where everything is sold in bulk, on pallets, unless if they were getting a good deal off of it.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      Costco has low prices per unit of product. But they are sold in large quantities so price per SKU is high. This is why Costco has low labor costs. A cashier scanning one average item at Costco is something like $20 in revenue, but at Walmart it is something like $5 revenue -- for the same human labor. (I remember seeing real numbers for this at one point but I can't find them.) While a middle income person might be able to buy a month's worth of groceries at one time, and fill their freezer and pantry, lower income people often do not have the cash flow to afford making grocery trips that large. Even if the unit price is slightly higher at Walmart, they have no other option, because they can't afford to buy $50 of beef at one time if their entire shopping budget $50.

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago

This is a dangerous oversimplification. Yes, you can increase the chances of getting rich faster by being dishonest, and in the cases it works, you can get spectacular results (like early Microsoft) or you can get caught and finish in jail. But many businesspeople get good results by a combination of already having some initial capital, the right idea in the right time, some talent and willingness to work and take some risks to make things happen. Many of these don't ever consider anything unethical. But of course only the worst cases get publicized. I call this idea dangerous, because it stigmatizes all successful people, not just the bad ones. Accepting this kind of collective responsibility is as repulsive as racist statements.

oefrha 6y ago

It’s not like Apple is an outlier and non-richest companies are any better. Electronics manufacturing, as well as many other kinds of manufacturing (e.g., clothing which is even more notorious), operate on razor thin margins. Guess how much you can realistically pay workers when you make a grand total of <$5[1] on a $1k device? Not gonna come close to U.S. minimum wage, that’s for sure. Anyway, this kind of exploitation is part of how Western companies accumulate wealth and it partially funds your first world salaries and lifestyles. [1] The higher estimates I’ve seen are always <$10, and lower estimates are way under.

esyir 6y ago
I'm pretty sure apple is an outlier, and their margins are hardly razor thin. The iphone's margin has been estimated anywhere at about 60-75%. This argument might apply to commodity grade electronics, but not to apple.
- oefrha 6y ago
  Manufacturing margins are razor thin. The brand names pocket all the profits, the people producing commodity parts and assembling them get nothing, which is my entire point. And no, Apple is not an outlier in that regard, even though they pocket more than HP, Dell, etc.

crumbshot 6y ago

Indeed, a decent company would split all its profits amongst its workers, commensurate with the value they created. Rather than handing it over to shareholders and investors who, by and large, have done no work to earn it. But as you say, that's not the world we live in.

randomdata 6y ago
It is essentially the world we live in, save that the workers usually want their share of the profits before they are made, and so the determination of how much profitability there is to be and their commensurate value within is built on a best guess from incomplete information. It is not always that way. Sometimes the workers are willing to wait to see how much profit is actually made before receiving their agreed upon share, but there is a good chance they will end up with nothing in the end, and so the aforementioned model, which carries far less risk for the worker, has become the most popular way.
- crumbshot 6y ago
  It's not the world we live in though, workers are rarely paid from the profits in the same sort of way shareholders are. Ideally, workers would be paid a wage for their time, and later have the profits of their work shared amongst them. After all, they are the ones responsible for generating this wealth.
  - loeg 6y ago
    You're free to buy as big a stake in your employer's stock as you want, and reap the profits. The point I'm trying to make is: what is a fair % of Apple's profits for an individual worker, and how much would it cost that worker to buy in as a worker-owner? Back of the envelope: $2.13T market cap, 137k employees: $15.5 million buy-in cost per employee-owner (~123k shares each). Dividends per share 2020: $2.615, or $323k/yr per worker. Please check my math, but I think I have the orders of magnitude right. Personally, if you have a spare $15.5 million, I'd recommend a more diversified portfolio of broad-market low-fee index funds and (IMO) early retirement.

zouhair 6y ago

You want to be rich? You have to take money where it is...the pockets of poor people.

ARandomerDude 6y ago
Poor, by definition, is the opposite of where the money is.
wait_a_minute 6y ago
That's nonsense. I've been growing my net worth quarter after quarter and I'm not pickpocketing any poor people.