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> "Most engineers received stock worth $80,000 to $120,000, with the bonuses provided as restricted stock units that are set to vest over the course of four yea

• judge2020 5y ago
  Not sure if this is how it works, but if they're awarded now and Apple maintains its current growth it could be worth 4x (AAPL is up ~400% compared to 4 years ago).
  • ripper1138 5y ago
    Extremely unlikely that Apple will 4x again in 4 years. Last 4 years stock performance are an extreme outlier for the all big tech companies.
    • anm89 5y ago
      Lol, yeah they would be worth 12T at that point. Either the dollar implodes and Apple becomes a sovereign nation or 4x aint happening.
    • rsstack 5y ago
      They don't need to convince you that there's a chance for 4x growth, they need to convince those specific individuals that there's a chance. And those engineers are immersed in a culture that could affect their perception of Apple's potential.
      • mgh2 5y ago
        Apple is targeting its next 10 years' growth in three key markets: Laptops, VR/AR, and EVs. How big is each market cap?
        • sofixa 5y ago
          VR/AR is miniscule with relatively high potential. We'll have to wait and see what they come up with, it could be great, it could be niche, no way no to know. EV has huge potential, but has a lot of competition, and Apple would be late to the party and without any serious advantages, technological, ecosystem, or otherwise. On the contrary, they'd have to build delivery and repair networks from scratch ( assuming they delegate all manufacturing). Even for their endless financial reserves, it seems very improbable they'd get anywhere serious within 10 years in the EV market. Laptops - that's a tough market with lots of competition and long retention ( as in people rarely upgrade, and tend to stick to manufacturers), many of it Apple simply cannot and could not overcome ( Windows will probably remain the de facto enterprise standard for some more time). They finally have a serious technological advantage beyond more abstract, subjective or niche ones ( better UX or light or long batter life) advantages.
          • chrischen 5y ago
            Also apple forays into new niches are generally hit or miss, though they do at least keep at it until it works like Apple Watch and Apple TV (which was near useless for the first 3-4 years).
        • jorvi 5y ago
          Laptops? I remember seeing a slide a while back (2017ish) where 70% of Apple's revenue was from iPhones, 5% from iPads and 2% from Macs. No way in hell do they consider that a big growth market.
          • mgh2 5y ago
            Apple Silicon
            • jorvi 5y ago
              Laptops didn’t shrink to such a tiny part of Apple’s revenue because of poor performance, Apple is at its core a consumer electronics company, and the paradigm for what devices consumers mainly use shifted with the times.
    • jonas21 5y ago
      It's not really that much of an outlier -- AAPL has had pretty ridiculous growth in each of the previous 4-year periods this century as well. 2021-12-28 $179.29 4.19x 2017-12-28 $ 42.77 2.14x 2013-12-28 $ 20.00 2.65x 2009-12-28 $ 7.56 2.87x 2005-12-28 $ 2.63 6.57x 2001-12-28 $ 0.40 3.33x 1997-12-28 $ 0.12 I agree this can't go on for too much longer, if only because governments will eventually stop Apple if they control too much of the economy. But is there room for another 4x? Maybe?
      • missedthecue 5y ago
        Apple being a $12 trillion company in four years just seems pretty low probability to me.
        • Turbots 5y ago
        • lotsofpulp 5y ago
          Would you have you ascribed a low probability to Apple being $3T as of Dec 2021 back in Sep 2019 (when it hit $1T)?
          • missedthecue 5y ago
            yes, and with each rapid doubling, the probability of further doubling decreases.
      • ZephyrBlu 5y ago
        What you aren't taking into account is that the larger you are, the more difficult it is to grow. You can even see this in Apple's growth since 2005 slowly declining. The last couple of years have been absolutely bonkers. 4x-ing from here would be 17x their valuation in 2017. Controlling for inflation, the probability of that happening given their current valuation seems ridiculously low.
  • greiskul 5y ago
    Well, the engineer could also take a job at another company, and just used the increased compensation to buy more Apple stock. Unless they significantly believe that they working in Apple will be a significant factor in Apple stock price increasing 4x, in which case, they should probably ask for more stock.
    • deanmoriarty 5y ago
      Except that RSUs that will mature 4 years from now will be granted today, so you have 4 years of potential appreciation even if you don’t have the money to buy those securities today. It’s quite difficult to replicate the same strategy without taking significantly more risk (i.e. margin), and it’s a big driver in why tech comps have been huge on average, because by the time shares vest they have already ballooned.
  • flatiron 5y ago
    They grant your “restricted stock units” and deal them out per quarter. So it could be worth $5 or 5 million when they get them.
• halpert 5y ago
  Yea, and that’s 30k before tax. The marginal rate is quite high for senior engineers. Most likely around 15k after tax
  • loeg 5y ago
    That's going to be true of all marginal compensation differences.
  • spiderice 5y ago
    Is that relevant? Wouldn’t an extra $30k at a new company also get taxed the same amount?
    • halpert 5y ago
      The GP was highlighting that 30k per year is very little to keep senior talent. I was adding some perspective to how little it really is after considering taxes at the highest bracket.
    • test0account 5y ago
      It matters if not everything is about money. Is 15k extra per year an effective boost to happiness? Is 15k enough to keep working for Big Brother, in a job with very limited freedom, professionally and socially Is 15k enough to keep working in a company that keeps users addicted to unhealthy behaviors?
• onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  Also - is this even new? >50% of engineers at Google are L4+. For the last few years, at L4 you should have been getting annual ~$100k grants over 4 years if your work in The Bay. My understanding is that FB paid even more, and that Amazon was maybe 20% behind at the same level. It's not like pre-covid engineers got nothing and now you get a $120k Bonus suddenly.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • mancerayder 5y ago
    Are these on top of a cash bonus?
    • mghfreud 5y ago
      Yes, but cash bonuses are “only” around 15-25% of base pay depending on seniority. For senior engineers, rsu grants are >= base pay.
      • mancerayder 5y ago
        So 300 base, plus the 100 or whatever RSU grant, plus 45-75K bonus?
        • onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
          L4 base is DEFINITELY NOT $300k. I think it's quite rare for L4s to have a base higher than $200k. But total compensation is likely higher than you mentioned. You have an initial grant that vests over 4 years that currently is absurdly high - usually more than your base (after appreciation). Then you have 4 of the grants that stack each year. Plus your 15-25% cash bonus. Plus you usually get a couple small ($1-$5k) bonuses throughout the year for the projects you're working on. FAANG salaries are no joke. Especially Google and FB.
        • mghfreud 5y ago
• michaelbuckbee 5y ago
  I work for an public enterprise software company and it's a constant drip of RSUs as performance bonuses, retention, company milestones, anniversary dates, "well we can't give you raise right now but how about some RSUs?", etc. So after a couple years as the vesting dates hit these start to stack and they end up becoming quite significant.
• ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
  30k works better than you would think even though its "not that much" for these workers because of the loss aversion bias.
  • ja3k 5y ago
    Not even loss aversion replicates well.
• PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  A bonus is a bonus. Presumably this is on top of whatever they had before, so an extra $20K to $45K per year is icing on the cake. In reality, most engineers aren't bouncing around from company to company every year trying to squeeze every last dollar out of their compensation. The strategy works well for a few iterations in early careers, but eventually it starts becoming counter-productive. If you have 10 jobs in 10 years on your resume, every hiring manager who sees it will instantly recognize that you're a job hopper who isn't likely to stay longer than a year. It also becomes difficult to really accomplish anything big if you're always leaving a company before you can really hit your stride. Most people I know who end up at FAANG level companies are interested in sticking around for at least 3-4 years, if not longer. This provides the chance to accomplish bigger things, build an actual reputation within the company, and move up the in-company career ladder. Jumping to other companies for a $10-50K immediate bonus could be shooting yourself in the foot relative to sticking around long enough to get a promotion and retention awards.
  • echelon 5y ago
    > In reality, most engineers aren't bouncing around from company to company every year trying to squeeze every last dollar out of their compensation. Not in my experience. Most engineers spend 1-2 years, then leave. > move up the in-company career ladder. That's a hard ladder to climb from the inside. Politics lead to entrenchment. > accomplish anything big A great deal of work is plumbing and KTLO. What do the folks working on these things get? They're not great promo or resume fodder for internal mobility.
  • shrimpx 5y ago
    My perception is that everyone knows job hopping is normal and companies will be happy to have you for that 1-2 years if you’re good. It’s not a black mark on your resume. For me a questionable resume is someone who spent the past 20 years at Accenture or something. Signals possibility of being too entrenched in those habits to make a contribution in a new environment.
    • Shebanator 5y ago
      As an engineering manager, this is definitely not true for me. If you have a long history of short tenures, you aren't worth the time to bring up to speed (which is generally 4-6 months). Having a short stint or two isn't a big deal though, people work for companies that have financial problems, or they get a bad manager, or whatever.
• brentis 5y ago
  Just said same thing. Making $360k yr. and wouldn't even feel it.
• thewebcount 5y ago
  Keep in mind that it’s $30k the first year. If you get the same bonus the next year, it’s now $60k ($30k from the first grant + $30k from the second). At 4 years you’re now making $120k per year above your salary. On top of that, Apple stock has been doing pretty well for something like 15-20 years now. If you don’t immediately sell, that first $30k you got is now worth significantly more, though there are no guarantees that will continue into the future. But it certainly can work out very nicely. If you start over at a new company, you lose that extra $120k per year for the next 4 years until you’re vested at the new company.
  • Shebanator 5y ago
    This is apparently a new and unprecedented bonus from Apple, over and above "normal" stock compensation. I'd be surprised if they repeat this every year.
• Turbots 5y ago
  A lot of them get this stock option every year, meaning after 4 years, you can easily have 480k vesting over time... (120k already vested after 4 years, 360k more to come in the next 4) etc...
• ineedasername 5y ago
  Sure, it's not going to discourage someone that is very actively looking elsewhere already. But for people on the fence? And the people that would follow them if they made the jump? That's who this is aimed at. And who knows? For the folks already looking to get out, if the first one or two opportunities to come their way don't work out, maybe they'll decide to stay too. This is especially true for anyone looking to jump ship mostly for the money: If someone wants to jump ship for an extra 40k-50k, then giving them 30k makes the difference pretty negligible, all else being equal.
• conductr 5y ago
  Proactive vs reactive bonus logic. If you're proactive, people are generally happy and not really a huge flight risk so the bonus just keeps them from even entertaining external offers even though they're hearing rumors of people leaving for X% more. If you're reactive, well they're probably already gone and you need to give them a huge counter offer to stay, many folks believe in the "never accept a counter" rule so again, you lost your employee.
• ninkendo 5y ago
  Keep in mind that the stock isn’t converted to cash when they grant it. It stays as stock from the beginning, so if the company goes up in value, it’s effectively worth more and more each year so long as you don’t sell it. $180k in AAPL 4 years ago is more like $540k now. If you don’t sell the stock, even after tax you’re potentially looking at $300k over a 4 year period. Plus, if you continue to get decent bonuses each year, this grows even more. Over a typical period over the past 10 years, Apple engineers would easily expect “salary” to be considerably less than half their actual income, especially when you consider the size of a typical sign-on RSU bonus and the amount it will grow. Now of course, the longer Apple keeps growing like this, the less and less likely it is to continue its trajectory, so I don’t know if new engineers will see the same gains, but over the past several years it would have been a pretty sweet deal.