22 ms·
Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years
- CryptoPunk 5y agoThis is very good news. I would love to see pro-capitalist policies enacted to bolster this. Things like repealing labor laws that grant unions with extra-contractual privileges that come from suppressing employers' rights - like being able prevent companies from replacing them when they strike - in order to restore contract liberty and re-institute a national free market in labor, scaling back and streamlining EPA regulations, and totally abolishing the OSHA, would do wonders for inviting more manufacturers to return to the US, and create strong network effects in supply chains.
- c-cube 5y agoHow about they pay taxes, for a start?
- HenryKissinger 5y ago> Today, Apple supports more than 2.7 million jobs across the country through direct employment, spending with US suppliers and manufacturers, and developer jobs in the thriving iOS app economy. Apple is the largest taxpayer in the US and has paid almost $45 billion in domestic corporate income taxes over the past five years alone.
- est31 5y agoI tried to look up this figure, using the following link: https://www.stock-analysis-on.net/NASDAQ/Company/Apple-Inc/Analysis/Income-Taxes https://www.stock-analysis-on.net/NASDAQ/Company/Apple-Inc/A... If I add up the entries of the "federal" line, I get $69 billion for the 5 columns 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016. Am I doing something wrong here? This is only the federal tax, not even the state tax, which would probably count into "domestic corporate income taxes" too.
- gowld 5y agoWhat happens if you add/subtract those negative "deferred" lines?
- gruez 5y agodeferred just means "put off untill later", right? ie. they'll still have to pay it, just in a later tax year?
- est31 5y agoThe sum of the deferred lines is, for federal corporate income tax, $51.4 billion. The difference is $9 billion... IDK I dont know much about US tax law, financial reports, or the like. So maybe I did something wrongly. It'd be interesting how they obtained that figure in the press release.
- gjsman-1000 5y agoIf crazy tax schemes are legal, that's the politicians' fault for not fixing them, not Apple's (who has a duty to shareholders to, you know, not pay more taxes than they have to).
- comeonseriously 5y agoNot attacking you, but I'm so tired of this: "...who has a duty to shareholders to, you know, not pay more taxes than they have to..." Let's make shareholders rich. It'll all trickle down from there...
- hurril 5y agoWhy aren't you a shareholder? EDIT: sure - downvote me all you want. The question is still around.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y agoGetting rich via investment depends on having income above a threshold which is set by the cost of living. If you spend 50% of your income every year and stick the rest into the stock market and get 6% or so after inflation, you can sustain your spending without working after about twelve years. If you spend 90% of your income every year and stick the rest into the stock market and get 6% or so after inflation, you can sustain your spending without working after about forty years. It's all to say that being a shareholder matters in a hugely different way depending on your income. The disparity is worse when you look at how you can sustain higher volatility once you're already wealthy. You're asking why can't people just be shareholders, but I think you're asking why it isn't enough that everyone can be shareholders. The reason is that being a shareholder only matters for those already making a ton.
- hurril 5y agoYou construct the same kind of false dichotomy that is so incredibly common among the but duh rich and duh poor blahblah do. There are more categories than the ultra rich and the incredibly poor. Stop that. A lot of people can save 10-20% in stocks (such as via index funds.) A lot of people would rather not do this and still complain and point sticks at "the rich." What can you do? "The reason is that being a shareholder only matters for those already making a ton." Is simply wrong and nonsensical. I don't make a ton, I am not ultra rich, it matters a lot to me to be a shareholder. It matters because that way I get to make money when "they" do.
- comeonseriously 5y agoThe article claims [0] they paid a whopping $45Bn over the "past 5 years alone". Wow Apple, that's ... yeah. [0] Not suggesting you didn't read it.
- strikelaserclaw 5y agoI get where you are coming from but what needs to change is the tax code, no public company, hell no normal individual, is going to pay more taxes than legally required.
- SirensOfTitan 5y agoSure, but the immense amount of political capital Apple and other similar companies hold ensures that the tax code won't change.
- meowface 5y agoYes, and for businesses it's additionally a typical arms race/coordination problem. If every company except yours is using a certain legal tactic to pay lower taxes, you're at a competitive disadvantage if you don't use the same tactic. Only law and law enforcement can prevent the inevitable outcome of everyone using it.
- krferriter 5y agoThe problem is they use the money they have to lobby and influence in favor of those beneficial tax loopholes and policies. It's a self-reinforcing cycle that we need to break.
- TulliusCicero 5y agoBlaming Apple for governments letting them get away with paying low taxes is certainly a take. Ultimately it's the responsibility of politicians and the voters who elect them to fix this.
- gher-shyu3i 5y agoIt's the tax breaks that facilitate these sorts of investments and innovations.
- jokethrowaway 5y agoHow about nobody does instead?
- tapoxi 5y ago"Oh shit, how do we dodge potential antitrust regulation?"
- hesdeadjim 5y agoTiming is a wee bit suspicious isn’t it.
- boringg 5y agoIt's a forever on-going negotiation.
- ulimn 5y agoWhatever the reason, I think this is a good thing.
- tck42 5y agoRight, and also - did they really "commit", at least in the "pledge" or "binding promise" sense of the word? I think "commit" might be too strong of a word. Maybe "plans to" would be better. They can announce this now and change their mind as they please, right? I'm not sure about Apple's track record on things like this, they may be good, but they could just slowly pull or decrease funding, and we probably won't even hear about it in the future, or am I missing something?
- ttul 5y ago“Let’s sprinkle a few billion dollars into each important senator’s state so they can’t shutter our operation.”
- failwhaleshark 5y ago"Spread money around. Get behind 'job-creation,' 'artisanal,' and 'locally-made.'"
- Covzire 5y agoIt's surprising to me that $430B doesn't include plans for Apple's own fab(s).
- gruez 5y agoOwning your own fabs is a great way to end up being stuck on a node, like intel.
- simonh 5y agoThis is almost right, but TSMC is a fab operator yet they seem to have transitioned to 5nm just fine. However you are correct in that TSMC still owns and operates its older node fabs. Today's cutting edge fab is tomorrow's legacy fab producing no-longer cutting edge commodity parts. This is why Apple won't buy any fabs or fab operators themselves.
- Covzire 5y agoStill they could sell foundry services for any spare capacity, or sell them to another company when it's no longer using them for cutting edge. I'm sure there's a very good reason they're not going that route but I can't help but think the whole world would be better off if the players that can afford it would operate their own fabs. I guess as long as Apple thinks they can remain the highest bidder at TSMC and China doesn't invade there is no reason to think their supply is threatened.
- simonh 5y agoBut who would the be selling that legacy fab capacity to? It would most likely be their competitors, at least in part. I just dont see Apples management being all that enthusiastic about any of that as a business. They put a huge premium in being as focused as possible.
- osugunner 5y agoIntel is already pivoting and opening up their fabs to other businesses. It's been a long time coming but Intel Foundry Services seems like a good move. https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/23/22347250/intel-new-factories-arizona-20-billion-chips-outsourcing-foundry-services-manufacturing https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/23/22347250/intel-new-factor...
- 55555 5y agoCan anyone break down what the $430B is going towards?
- ErikVandeWater 5y agoLobbying.
- CydeWeys 5y agoGood question. It sounds like employee compensation is included in the figure so it really could just be "all projected US expenditures in the next 5 years".
- 55555 5y agoThat's what I assumed. I couldn't see any other way this would be even remotely possible.
- perardi 5y agoEvery news story I see if pretty much a rephrasing of this press release, so I don’t think there are much in the way of more details out there.
- thiago_fm 5y agoYou know the old Apple is dead when they are making statements which look more like a 90s IBM press release.
- ldbooth 5y agoThis is highly ranked on HN? Here is your sign... Hacker PR.
- tolbish 5y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but I take it the funding going into all of these office spaces means remote working at Apple is more or less impossible in the future for the vast majority of employees?
- arthur_sav 5y agoI see it the other way. Choose to live anywhere in the US and you get a Hub for your team meetings / office space.
- kshacker 5y agoAbsolutely. Cupertino, Vancouver, Austin, Research Triangle and many more I guess.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- perardi 5y agoLet’s run through the possible reasons Apple announced this, with various degrees of cynicism. 1. Getting some good press before Congress decides to do something in regards to the app store model. 2. Apple is reading the winds, seeing that Chinese supply chains may be politically constrained, and preparing for that future. 3. Apple is reading the winds, seeing that Chinese supply chains may be politically constrained, and announcing this investment so they can continue to have Chinese supply chains after a good PR move.
- Daishiman 5y agoDon't forget 4. doing a good PR so that a Dem-controlled Congress doesn't push for repatriation of corporate cash reserves kept in tax havens.
- mrweasel 5y ago$430B seems like more than you'd need for a good PR stunt.
- skrtskrt 5y agoIt's $0 if you were already going to spend it anyway
- perardi 5y agoI suspect they really were going to spend a significant chunk of this regardless, but they packaged it into a nice press release at a potentially fraught political moment. And…$430 billion over 5 years is a lot, but what if it influences tax or tariff rates just a bit in your direction over a 10-year period? Because that could be worth it, especially, again, if you were going to set up that new campus anyway.
- zepto 5y ago> I suspect they really were going to spend a significant chunk of this regardless Regardless of what?
- purple_ferret 5y agotheir use of the word 'campus' is pretty cringeworthy It's called an office park
- ksec 5y ago>Apple’s $430 billion in contributions to the US economy include direct spend with American suppliers, data center investments, capital expenditures in the US, and other domestic spend — including dozens of Apple TV+ productions across 20 states, creating thousands of jobs and supporting the creative industry. I dont like how Apple spin this as investment in the headline, when it is clearly contribution. If you buy something at Walmart, or any of your daily needs, is that an investment in US? And I dont know how that $430B is calculated. Direct Spend with American Suppliers are mostly Corning for Front Glasses, Qualcomm for Modem and Patents. These two alone is close to $50B in five years. Even if Apple spend $10B on Datacenter and $10B on Apple TV ( They dont ), Likely including all their employees salary, Rent for Apple Retail, basically every single dollar spend within US. The numbers still doesn't add up. It reads to me Apple is doing their PR pieces on their contribution to US because Congress is now looking at them as enemies.
- gowld 5y agoThat's a standard use of the term "investment" in the macroeconomic sense of exchanging money to get people to do work so they can pay other people to do work for them. Ita because paying US people for that work is better for the personal development of (otherwise underemployed) US people than paying non-US people.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mrweasel 5y agoIt reads like they're trying to avoid creating jobs in manufacturing directly, but will instead pick US suppliers and potentially let them hire lower skilled workers. I wouldn't expect this to create that many jobs in manufacturing, it seems more like engineering and creative work, with a promise to prefer US suppliers, assuming they exists.
- andrewjl 5y agoYeah that sounds right, although I don't think they ever claimed or even implied that they themselves are creating manufacturing jobs. Even prior PR by them around creating domestic manufacturing jobs was showcasing their suppliers. Barring a major transformation, I don't see Apple ever operating a factory, whether in the US or overseas.
- Traster 5y agoI kind of hate the way Apple phrases their business investments like they're performing some great charitable act. Also, I'll wait for an external audit of whether they're paying all the relevant local taxes before I would consider giving them credit for these "investments" in local infrastructure they're making.
- tamcap 5y agoNC just announced they will give Apple close to a $1B tax break... (granted, over up to 30 years)
- OliverJones 5y agoArrgh ... never give a sucker politician an even break. RTP is a fine place to put this project, good enough in fact that the state doesn't have to bribe them to do it. This tax-break-if-you-locate-here thing is a longstanding scam against politicians by companies. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/corporate-tax-breaks-can-backfire-new-york-city-just-found-n971761 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/corporate-tax... These tax incentives should be structured as follows: 1. Do your payroll and pay your payroll taxes (FICA, Federal and State unemployment, whatever). 2. Submit your payroll tax receipts to the state incentive operation. 3. Get a rebate of some percentage of that payroll tax. In other words, no tax-break payments until people get actually paid. This incentivizes the company to do what the state wants: employ people in good jobs. If the company gets a "better offer" from some other place and moves, then the state doesn't get completely screwed over.
- gogopuppygogo 5y agoI’ll wait to see the halo effect of high paying tech jobs in a community. Any community with half a functioning government should give tax breaks to get these kinds of jobs from such a reputable company.
- delfinom 5y ago>I’ll wait to see the halo effect of high paying tech jobs in a community. Increased homelessness from rapid gentrification
- imtringued 5y agoI don't care why they are doing this, but it should have happened a long time ago. The cynism here is disappointing. If companies start investing their money domestically then excess savings will fall, deflationary pressures will be gone and the economy will start growing quickly again and that means wages will grow too.
- ksec 5y ago>but it should have happened a long time ago. The cynism here is disappointing. The cynism here is disappointing. Precisely because it did happen a long time ago. None of what is pointed out is new. It is basically celebrating Apple is an US business.
- laurent92 5y agoMost of Apple’s money is made abroad. Is there a reason why it should come back to the US at a loss for the stock holder?
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago> why it should come back to the US They are a US company, reaping the tax benefits of that nexus. If they'd been an EU company, they would have paid a lot more in various taxes (including higher wage taxes) over the last 40 years. IOW, they would not be as wealthy a company today.
- RhodoGSA 5y agoThe US is one of the only countries that taxs worldwide income.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoThat is true now but has not been true for all of the last 40 years that Apple has been in business. And you're ignoring wage taxes and employee benefits, which are significantly higher in some other nations.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y agoInvest it in some tax payments and I’ll be impressed, these sound like normal business expenses. https://americansfortaxfairness.org/issues/corporate-taxes/highlights-of-apples-tax-dodging/ https://americansfortaxfairness.org/issues/corporate-taxes/h...
- luke2m 5y agoWhat laptop is that in the background?
- nathancahill 5y agoNew 16" M1X
- dev_tty01 5y agoClearly an M2 with 64 GB of RAM...
- failwhaleshark 5y ago/s 0. So how many trillions will be laundered and hidden overseas? 1. Is Apple really just launching the eWallet, the world's first self-laundering wallet with domestic currency support?
- brigandish 5y agoThat might be enough to fix XCode. Might be.
- troelsSteegin 5y agoSo, that's potentially about $85B per year in US spending vs 2020 global revenue of $275B. Would it be fair to say then that two thirds of Apple's planned net "investments" are outside the US?
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> $85B per year in US spending vs 2020 global revenue of $275B $57bn of that was income [1], so about 40% of spend. Which lines up with the 41% of revenues Apple gets from the U.S. [2]. [1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY20_Q4_Consolidated_Financial_Statements.pdf https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY20_Q4_Consolidated_Fin... [2] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/10/apple-reports-fourth-quarter-results/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/10/apple-reports-fourth-...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cryptica 5y agoIf the reserve bank money printing continues, soon there won't be anything to eat but at least we'll have plenty of smartphones! The big market distortion is coming. Get prepared for absolute insanity.
- breck 5y agoThis is fantastic. Apples devices continue to be so groundbreaking (M1), it’s exciting that their culture of innovation and excellence will be spread more throughout the country. They will further seed the innovation hubs in all these places. I think it’s smart too, to gain new perspectives and tap new talent that doesn’t want to move to San Jose area.
- yotamoron 5y agoWell that's a surprise - the Biden administration cracks down on big tech, and Boom! Apple commits to invest 430B$ in the US economy! That's just a scaled-up version of pink-washing - Look, apple is so great, we can't dismantle it for being a monopoly! Now run and do something bad to the real villains like Amazon! They can start by honestly and fully paying their taxes.
- nix23 5y agoIt that more or less then the saved taxes? @Apple Hedgefonds are a good investment.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hit8run 5y agoWould be nice if they also started to pay taxes in the EU.
- dalbasal 5y agoI'm probably reading too much into this, but it feels like this and other corporate announcements are channeling a pretty substantial shift in political-economic mood, theory-space or whatnot. They seem to be justifying themselves in ways that were previously unnecessary. If Monetarism really is being abandoned, I predict unpredictable changes to economic thinking across the board. It was definitely impactful on the way in. I suppose unicorns zooming past the $trn mark is connected too. The "cash accumulation" aspect of FAANG economies is (IMO) hard to digest in terms of economic theory. Rather that existing to finance economic activity, these companies make stock markets look like they exist solely for liquidity: cashing out VCs, compensating executives, etc. There is no "I need $1bn to build a new factory or something." There is no equity/debt ratio. Most of the texbook (at least mine, from circa 2003) doesn't apply. Apple/etc have plenty of cash, and don't need capital to expand either way. Economics has surprisingly little (new) to say about why dividends aren't happening, the difference between buybacks & dividends or cash accumulation generally. I can think ways to "story" cash accumulation. Eg, instead of investors getting dividends and buying Vanguard or Bitcoin, FAANGs might as well just buy the securities on their behalf. This could be an argument, but I haven't heard it made. I'm not advocating it, just eg. A "hostile" story might be that Apple are hogging all the capital that should be available for Tesla or some other company that actually needs capital. In any case, I suspect there is more pressure to invest big sums than we know.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- wu_187 5y agoThey need to pay their taxes
- fguerraz 5y agoAlso, with many trillion dollars of money printed recently vs 0 CNY, it is very likely that the value of the USD will slide significantly compared to RMB. It is not that far-fetched to think that in a not so distant future China consider the USA (and Europe) as sources of cheap manufacturing.
- throwaway2037 5y agoI am confused by this comment. "[M]any trillion dollars of money printed recently" -- are you talking about the US Federal Reserve? That isn't money printing; it is quantitative easing -- now also practiced by European Central Bank, Bank of Japan, and Bank of England. It does not cause inflation. If anything, weirdly, it appears to cause deflation. Money printing is Weimar Republic (~1920s) or Zimbabwe (2000-2010). If there was out of control "money printing", we would see unprecedented inflation. Do we see that? No. Please correct me if I misunderstand your comment. "0 CNY" -- Do you not consider expansion of credit by state-owned commercial banks equivalent to "printing money"? I do. It causes inflation through rising housing costs. (All major central banks now include housing costs in their inflation figures.) The more likely scenario of the future of "cheap manufacturing" is (near) total automation in highly developed countries with (near) zero-cost green energy. That means their carbon intensity will be very low. Thus, carbon (import/export) taxes will be very low. Why sew socks in a country with very low labour costs, but coal-generated electricity? A machine/robot can sew the same socks using green energy in a factory located 100km outside a major city in a highly developed country. As an example: Look at Fast Retailing (Uniqlo, etc.), headquartered in Japan, but truly global as a retail brand. They are a world leader in highly automated manuf. of clothes. (Same for Zara.) I can imagine they will be one of the first to aggressively "on-shore" from developing countries to Japan, where clothes will be (near) 100% robot-made. I have heard much the same about Adidas and re-shoring shoe manuf. to Germany with (near) 100% automation.
- fguerraz 5y agoDon't be confused, yes QE is virtual is money printing, yes it will cause either: * Inflation. * Re-evaluation of the exchange rates * Supply issues if the above two do not happen Time will tell :-) But the main reason it hasn't happened yet is because the money that has been printed (or whatever) has not made its way to the real economy yet, it has mostly gone to the financial markets. When people will try to use that money for real, that's when sh* will hit the fan
- sam0x17 5y agoAnnouncing a new multi-billion dollar campus during a pandemic strikes me as so fucking out of touch, and goes against the direction the industry was already going pre-pandemic. IMO at this point they should just fold and start transitioning to permanent work from home like the vast majority of startups and tech companies. This terrifies FANG because then they will have a vacant campus and whoever commissioned it will look pretty dumb. Dumber is spending multi-billion dollars on a campus when you could work from home.
- dev_tty01 5y agoThey sell hardware and lots of it. That requires labs and direct collaboration at many points in the process. It also requires lots of highly specialized test equipment and test facilities. This cannot be done with everyone working from home. It is naive to suggest otherwise. Also, many of us enjoy and still want direct in-person collaboration. If you don't and your job doesn't require it, then good for you. Enjoy, but there is no need to project that onto everyone else.
- sam0x17 5y agoThere is literally no difference between sitting in a zoom call all day with your coworkers while you code and sitting in a cubicle with them. Sometimes HN is so boomer brain
- ramshanker 5y agoReading between the lines, anyone else seeing an inhouse FAB! In the name of vertical integration, that is the last thing they need to consolidate after M1. Imagine Processor, Graphics, Modem, Baseband, Power Control all chips designed inhouse and manufactured on own FAB. ;)
- tonyedgecombe 5y agoApple outsources nearly all of its manufacturing, I can't see that changing any time soon.
- Someone 5y agoI doubt they have the scale to make owning a fab worthwhile. Certainly, unless they branch out into selling more mundane chips, they would have a problem using the capacity in their fabs for their own chips once those fabs get older.
- TechBro8615 5y agoHow is owning a fab not worthwhile for a company that produces billions of devices each containing multiple chips? Sure you can make the arguments against vertical integration, but to "doubt they have the scale" when speaking of the most valuable company in the world, with a product in the hands of billions? If Apple doesn't have the scale, then who does?
- Someone 5y agoOf course they have the money, but I don’t think they have the demand from their own products that can keep a fab running full-time through its lifetime. I just don’t see them selling low-end devices or producing low-end devices for others. That would make owning a fab for themselves uneconomical. Exception would be if they managed to build a fab that’s better than what others have, but I don’t see them do that, either. On the other hand, TSMC, without Apple’s money, might not be as strong as it is with it, allowing Apple to beat it, and have the best fab.
- dmode 5y agoWait, no investment in Miami ? Reading tech twitter, folks already claimed Miami to be the next tech hub
- rllearneratwork 5y agoHere, I'll quote it for you: "Apple has also surpassed its 2018 hiring commitments in Miami, New York, Pittsburgh, and Portland, Oregon."
- dmode 5y agoThat's not really an investment. Sounds more like retail hiring.
- dcolkitt 5y agoAs a Floridian, it's difficult for me to understand why we've done so bad at attracting any sort of tech industry. Five, ten years ago, you could simply say that it's Silicon Valley (or Seattle) or bust. But since then, Austin, Denver, NC, Nova, Portland, Nashville and others have all done a really good job of actually competing with California for tech industry growth. On paper, Florida seems like it should be really competitive in this space. Good weather, low taxes, business friendly climate, immigrant centric culture, decently low cost of living, good schools, and population ties to the high-skilled NYC area. So, I'm genuinely curious, because I know there are people on this board who are in a position to make these decisions. If your company considered a satellite campus in Miami or Tampa or the Space Coast and decided to pass, what was the reason? The sticky summers? Lack of topography? Florida Man stereotypes?
- reducesuffering 5y agoLack of intellectual density. > Austin, Denver, NC, Nova, Portland, Nashville All have great universities in the immediate vicinity which are a nexus for commercial intellect. These metros are roughly 1/3 of the size with probably double on avg. the available tech talent pool.
- SirSourdough 5y ago
- Decabytes 5y ago> Apple is the largest taxpayer in the US and has paid almost $45 billion in domestic corporate income taxes over the past five years alone. They just had to slip this in there. If they were taxed appropriately on the money over seas we would see an additional $10billion. Being the least scummy in a field rife with tax evasion isn't saying much. Also... > Apple’s contributions in the US have significantly outpaced the company’s original five-year goal of $350 billion set in 2018 So it's only upping the amount it had already pledged. So they were already doing it anyway
- StandardFuture 5y agoTax evasion is allowed by the people you elect, and you know it. Any unelected corporation can only be bound by the laws and system that it is a part of. If you really want to change things then start speaking out against any and all politicians in bed with private actors (for ANY political party, btw) -- not overly-focusing on just "those politicians who disagree with you on abortion" or something else insanely and profoundly silly. Also, if you really, and I mean truly, despise the way things are then stop complaining on the internet and run for local office? Then if that goes well, run for a higher office? Just an idea. But an idea that the vast majority of us on HN never take seriously.
- AzzieElbab 5y agoSurprised they didn’t mention their upcoming i-car business
- continuations 5y ago> $430 billion and add 20,000 new jobs So it takes $22 million investment to add just 1 job? Something seems off.
- sva_ 5y agoIt says "and add", not "to add". So I'd say the new jobs are just a side-effect.
- zsmi 5y agoIt seems off because the jobs just a byproduct of the investment, not the end goal. i.e. Say I invest $10M to make a precision machine shop and I employing 5 machinists, as a crude example. Here my goal was to make a machine shop capable of producing precision parts, not to spend $2M/job.
- Aissen 5y agoIt's a long road from Steve Jobs' "Those jobs are not coming back" to Obama.
- jokethrowaway 5y agoThis looks to me like it's high skilled jobs, specialist manufacturing. Jobs was talking about cheap manufacturing jobs in China.
- cromwellian 5y agoI don’t really see anything significant here about derisking their heavy dependence on Chinese assembly and supply chains which means they will continue to be over a barrel and subject to the whims of the CCP as well as US - China relations. Plus the spreading of their small manufacturing fund over several states isn’t going to bring about an American Shenzhen, like with Silicon Valley, it needs to be a geographically centralized hub or nexus to get increasing gains from cross pollination between all of the firms. Apple needs to be investing to lessen their dependence on Foxconn mainland manufacturing and logistics.
- jokethrowaway 5y agoNice! I wonder when we will all start living inside campuses. They definitely look nicer than most public cities.
- nightowl_games 5y agoI've been postulating privately that we will move towards opt-in private governments, with private cities, that people get citizen scores and have no privacy, and that we will _choose_ to do that, because it will be a utopia inside those walls. Your suggestion here solidifies that in my mind. We will live on private campuses owned by the corporation for which we work. It will be a utopia in there. And we will have no privacy. And we will be rated. And we will love being quantified. And outside those walls the world will decay.
- mcphage 5y ago> we will _choose_ to do that, because it will be a utopia inside those walls Companies have tried their hands at being the government in the past, and the outcome has always been.... something less than utopian.
- fonix 5y agoanyone here have any deets on what it's like to work for apple (any, but hopefully specifically some engineering job)? perks, hours, any flex time - did the interview suck?
- the_only_law 5y agoI’m curious as well, having seen a number of positions that look interesting. How strict are they on degree requirements? I’ve seen some job postings within the same divisions (team?) for software development positions requiring degrees and others explicitly noting a “or equivalent experience”. One concern I have is regarding IP and open source works. I recall an article posted to HN a while back where someone who had got a job apple was required to give up a project they had worked in outside work.
- TheMagicHorsey 5y agoIf this is true, I'm bullish on real estate in Elk Grove, California. Elk Grove is a suburb of Sacramento that is about 1.5 hours from San Francisco. Apple used to have a major manufacturing presence here before they expanded their manufacturing in China. After Apple moved their manufacturing overseas, Elk Grove became a sleepy suburb where engineers from the Bay Area moved their families to get affordable homes and better schools. Ever since telecommuting for work took off, the house prices have been spiking. Disclosure: I have been looking at Elk Grove, Folsom, and other Sacramento suburbs as a possible place to relocate my family and team ... my team and I are not happy with the cost of living in SF, and we can get a lot more bang for buck by moving away. You can get a 4 bedroom, 2500 sqft house in Elk Grove for about 750,000 now (six months ago it was 500,000). The schools are also quite diverse ... over 30% Asian and Indian.
- seahckr 5y agoInteresting. How do Apple's investments outside near LA and other parts of US help Sacramento real estate?
- TheMagicHorsey 5y agoApple has a manufacturing presence outside Sacramento that has been scaled down to a support center after manufacturing migrated to China. It was active even in the early 2000s.