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> which he has essentially 10x'd the value of in his tenure Think there might have been one or two other people involved in that. Maybe even a few more than th

> which he has essentially 10x'd the value of in his tenure Think there might have been one or two other people involved in that. Maybe even a few more than that.

danpalmer 5y ago
I think you can say that about anyone who makes anything based on work from anyone else. While it's important to recognise those others (as those at Apple with stock based compensation have been), I don't think it nullifies the point because they didn't do all the work themselves.
- jaggederest 5y ago
  In what possible world could Tim Cook personally have done anything worth $75m, let alone $750m? How can any single human being create value at that scale? I don't understand the apologia for what is, on its face, a massively skewed system of compensation completely unrelated to any possible basis in reality.
  - Veen 5y ago
    That’s not really relevant. The relevant reality is that he has a contract that awards him X if he achieves Y. He achieved Y so he gets X. Whether it’s justified is a matter for the shareholders and the board.
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      We are not talking about the terms of a contract here. We are talking about a post that credits him with this achievement, and him alone.
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    In your opinion, can a bit better CEO (not outrageously better, just somewhat better than the other guy/gal with a bit brighter long-term strategy and a bit different focus for the subordinate top managers) personally make a 1% total difference in company growth across ten years? If you don't accept that, then I'll just have to disagree based on how I've seen companies are managed, IMHO personalities matter at least that much. But if you do accept that, then that obviously means that a single human being can create value at that scale, as 1% impact on Apple's growth over 10 years would be something like $20 billion. Being in positions with extremely high leverage means that your decisions have extremely high impact on value. Of course, there are also opposite examples of CEOs who have personally destroyed billions of value through their decisions.
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      One person absolutely can not do that. Only a big team of people can do that. One person will be leading the team. That does not mean that it is they who creates that impact.
      - PeterisP 5y ago
        Even at small scales, picking the people on the team and altering their priorities have an immense team on the team's results, it can easily double or halve it, so the impact of these decisions is literally on the same scale as the all the individual contributions of those team members together.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    The nature of leadership is that your decisions are highly leveraged, and have huge impact. I think every single day he makes decisions which could destroy $750m or create $750m. He could wipe billions with a bad tweet. If they greenlight (or cancel) a product that increases revenue 0.1% and that single decision could make (or loose) the company billions. If a board thinks a CEO will get 0.1% better returns than the next best option, that is worth billions of compensation.
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    Leverage. The company is sufficiently large that one person's decision can easily have multi-billion dollar consequences. $750m isn't really that big relative to the consequences of his decision making. Besides, the beautiful thing is that it's the people whose money is on the line that are deciding to pay him so much money. If they thought he wasn't worth a lot of money, then they would have got rid of him.
  - therealdrag0 5y ago
    It’s amusing that earlier this week HN was arguing that devs don’t get payed for the impact/value they generate (justifying low pentest bounties). And now the argument is the opposite for C-suite. IIRC many academics have studied ceo comp and found it outsized any evidence based justification of influence (such as compared to if a lower payed ceo was at reigns).
ZephyrBlu 5y ago
And a lot of those people would have also had stock based compensation.
fighterpilot 5y ago
Sort of like how Michael Jordan's teammates helped him in the Bulls. But you would be a damn fool to not pay him to ensure that he doesn't go anywhere.

> which he has essentially 10x'd the value of in his tenure Think there might have been one or two other people involved in that. Maybe even a few more than that.

danpalmer 5y ago

I think you can say that about anyone who makes anything based on work from anyone else. While it's important to recognise those others (as those at Apple with stock based compensation have been), I don't think it nullifies the point because they didn't do all the work themselves.

jaggederest 5y ago
In what possible world could Tim Cook personally have done anything worth $75m, let alone $750m? How can any single human being create value at that scale? I don't understand the apologia for what is, on its face, a massively skewed system of compensation completely unrelated to any possible basis in reality.
- Veen 5y ago
  That’s not really relevant. The relevant reality is that he has a contract that awards him X if he achieves Y. He achieved Y so he gets X. Whether it’s justified is a matter for the shareholders and the board.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    We are not talking about the terms of a contract here. We are talking about a post that credits him with this achievement, and him alone.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  In your opinion, can a bit better CEO (not outrageously better, just somewhat better than the other guy/gal with a bit brighter long-term strategy and a bit different focus for the subordinate top managers) personally make a 1% total difference in company growth across ten years? If you don't accept that, then I'll just have to disagree based on how I've seen companies are managed, IMHO personalities matter at least that much. But if you do accept that, then that obviously means that a single human being can create value at that scale, as 1% impact on Apple's growth over 10 years would be something like $20 billion. Being in positions with extremely high leverage means that your decisions have extremely high impact on value. Of course, there are also opposite examples of CEOs who have personally destroyed billions of value through their decisions.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    One person absolutely can not do that. Only a big team of people can do that. One person will be leading the team. That does not mean that it is they who creates that impact.
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      Even at small scales, picking the people on the team and altering their priorities have an immense team on the team's results, it can easily double or halve it, so the impact of these decisions is literally on the same scale as the all the individual contributions of those team members together.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  The nature of leadership is that your decisions are highly leveraged, and have huge impact. I think every single day he makes decisions which could destroy $750m or create $750m. He could wipe billions with a bad tweet. If they greenlight (or cancel) a product that increases revenue 0.1% and that single decision could make (or loose) the company billions. If a board thinks a CEO will get 0.1% better returns than the next best option, that is worth billions of compensation.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  Leverage. The company is sufficiently large that one person's decision can easily have multi-billion dollar consequences. $750m isn't really that big relative to the consequences of his decision making. Besides, the beautiful thing is that it's the people whose money is on the line that are deciding to pay him so much money. If they thought he wasn't worth a lot of money, then they would have got rid of him.
- therealdrag0 5y ago
  It’s amusing that earlier this week HN was arguing that devs don’t get payed for the impact/value they generate (justifying low pentest bounties). And now the argument is the opposite for C-suite. IIRC many academics have studied ceo comp and found it outsized any evidence based justification of influence (such as compared to if a lower payed ceo was at reigns).

ZephyrBlu 5y ago

And a lot of those people would have also had stock based compensation.

fighterpilot 5y ago

Sort of like how Michael Jordan's teammates helped him in the Bulls. But you would be a damn fool to not pay him to ensure that he doesn't go anywhere.