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I very much doubt the C-Suite could take over a busy store with no training and run it. Customer interactions require skill. Knowing how the register works or h

I very much doubt the C-Suite could take over a busy store with no training and run it. Customer interactions require skill. Knowing how the register works or how to order more inventory requires training. I have no doubt they could do it with proper training. I also have no doubt that if you took a random apple store employee and gave them Tim Cook's education that they could be a passable CEO.

yupper32 5y ago
Tim Cook's education? Are you saying they'll all spend 12 years at IBM, ending at the director level while getting their MBA at Duke, then spend time being a COO and VP at other companies, and then finally replacing Tim Cook? Ok fair. I think comparing that to a few weeks of training to run a store is wild.
- henryfjordan 5y ago
  The headline literally compares them though. Tim Cook is paid 1400x the average worker. Do you think someone working in an Apple store would rather be there than getting an MBA at Duke? or being COO somewhere? Tim Cook was incredibly privileged to get the education and opportunities that he did. I'm not saying he wouldn't be a better CEO than most, but most people don't get to try so we don't know that fact. He's absolutely not 1400x times better than people with similar education. Even Apple isn't doing that well. If luck had him become CEO of IBM instead of Apple we wouldn't be praising him as "extraordinary" just because of circumstance.
  - yupper32 5y ago
    Isn't that the point? It doesn't really matter how he gained his education/skills, but he did. And it took 20 years or so. I'd wager that 80% of the English speaking adult US population could be trained to work in an Apple store and do fine within a few weeks.
    - henryfjordan 5y ago
      I mean, sure, but we have to recognize that the path to getting the education/skills was not fair. MBA programs only let in so many people (and certain types of people, if we're being honest). Only so many C-Suite positions exist for you to get management experience in. Getting selected for these opportunities requires luck as much as skill. If you want to talk about compensation like a "fair market" and that there's only 1 Tim Cook so per the rules of supply/demand he can charge a ton for his services, then we have to also acknowledge that the market to acquire those skills is unfair. You cannot base a fair market on the output of an unfair one, they are both unfair. Tim Cook's compensation is unfair.
      - yupper32 5y ago
        > If you want to talk about compensation like a "fair market" and that there's only 1 Tim Cook so per the rules of supply/demand he can charge a ton for his services Yes, I agree with this. > The market to acquire those skills is unfair So far so good. I agree with this. This is why I try to vote for people who support expanding access to education, for example. > You cannot base a fair market on the output of an unfair one, they are both unfair. Tim Cook's compensation is unfair. This is where you lose me. You can't connect the two like that. The unfair path to get to the position of CEO is a separate conversation to what that compensation should be to be considered fair.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Why would they need that? They already have the job and could easily pay a MBA Duke grad for advise if needed which probably isn't. 12 years at IBM ending up as director advise could be bought but not sure how important it is. All other CEOs don't share that experience and get on fine without it.
microtherion 5y ago
The C-Suite includes the SVP Retail, and I trust that she could manage the basics of running a store. Tim himself has take occasional shifts in stores, as far as I know, and the technical SVPs should have the skills to staff the genius jobs — Craig Federighi definitely also would have the interpersonal skills. As for your second paragraph, keep in mind that there was a string of highly qualified CEOs who tried and failed to run Apple when it was a far smaller company — Sculley, Spindler, and Amelio were no dummies.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  Also I don't understand the instinct to make these kinds of comparisons. Apple also offers food to its employees. Can Tim Cook cook? It's such a stupid question. We don't expect that any employee can jump into any role anywhere.
  - henryfjordan 5y ago
    You are so close to seeing the point. Tim Cook can't make and sell iPhones by himself. The C-Suite can't do it by themselves. Management can't do it. The designers can't do it. It's not until you consider the whole team, including store employees and assembly line workers that Apple can produce iPhones. It takes the WHOLE team. Why is 1 member of a team of people who all have to work together to achieve their shared goal paid 1400x more than average? Does that seem fair?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - microtherion 5y ago
      First of all, the 1400x is a miscalculation, because it attributes a sum to be earned out over many years to a single year. Yes, it takes tens of thousands of people to design, make and sell Apple's products. Tim would be the first to acknowledge that. Does this mean that each of them is equally valuable to the company and equally hard to replace? No. (Which is not a statement about their worth as _human beings_, mind you).
deleted 5y ago
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jka 5y ago
This may seem slightly pessimistic, but I'd guess that C-suite folks have enough connection with the goals, vision and details of the business to feel like they are connected to day-to-day events -- including an ability to speak about them confidently -- and perhaps even get involved with daily activities from time to time, although their (operational) value-add is completely and perhaps necessarily completely disconnected from the transactional business fundamentals. What we have going on here, I think, is a set of businesses which typically have (at minimum) two tiers - the "network tier" where your value is your personal connections, education, wealth and power: highly leveragable into success of a single or multiple businesses that you sit with, and the "production tier" - people who actually do the f'ing work of turning the network tier's demands into something that resembles it in reality. Businesses that don't have both aren't likely to thrive. Resulting questions: what are the true directional dependencies between those two groups, and how do they each sustain them? Could that be made healthier for all participants? I have no doubt that this has probably already been explored by economic philosophers in other, more precise terms: this is just my naive attempt to put the patterns into my own words.
- jka 5y ago
  (in hindsight I feel a bit like this was an apologist/acceptance-of-the-facts kind of comment. I don't think it's a great situation, and I'd love to discover that in fact, Tim Cook assembles 50x as many iPhones per day as the typical Wistron employee, or locks his office door and cold calls promising app developers for 30 hours a week on a gradually ramp-increasing success quota, but my sense is that it's unlikely to be the case. It's more likely, I expect, smooth talk, an unflustered manner, and pressure applied to people who are expected to deal with problems and won't retain their jobs if they don't)
gremlinsinc 5y ago
Honestly anybody in this position would be a fool not to take on advisers and consultants and they'd have access to the money for that. A business advisor/tutor could basically give them an MBA equivalency in like 3-4 years and they'd be just as good as Tim Cook.

yupper32 5y ago

Tim Cook's education? Are you saying they'll all spend 12 years at IBM, ending at the director level while getting their MBA at Duke, then spend time being a COO and VP at other companies, and then finally replacing Tim Cook? Ok fair. I think comparing that to a few weeks of training to run a store is wild.

henryfjordan 5y ago
The headline literally compares them though. Tim Cook is paid 1400x the average worker. Do you think someone working in an Apple store would rather be there than getting an MBA at Duke? or being COO somewhere? Tim Cook was incredibly privileged to get the education and opportunities that he did. I'm not saying he wouldn't be a better CEO than most, but most people don't get to try so we don't know that fact. He's absolutely not 1400x times better than people with similar education. Even Apple isn't doing that well. If luck had him become CEO of IBM instead of Apple we wouldn't be praising him as "extraordinary" just because of circumstance.
- yupper32 5y ago
  Isn't that the point? It doesn't really matter how he gained his education/skills, but he did. And it took 20 years or so. I'd wager that 80% of the English speaking adult US population could be trained to work in an Apple store and do fine within a few weeks.
  - henryfjordan 5y ago
    I mean, sure, but we have to recognize that the path to getting the education/skills was not fair. MBA programs only let in so many people (and certain types of people, if we're being honest). Only so many C-Suite positions exist for you to get management experience in. Getting selected for these opportunities requires luck as much as skill. If you want to talk about compensation like a "fair market" and that there's only 1 Tim Cook so per the rules of supply/demand he can charge a ton for his services, then we have to also acknowledge that the market to acquire those skills is unfair. You cannot base a fair market on the output of an unfair one, they are both unfair. Tim Cook's compensation is unfair.
    - yupper32 5y ago
      > If you want to talk about compensation like a "fair market" and that there's only 1 Tim Cook so per the rules of supply/demand he can charge a ton for his services Yes, I agree with this. > The market to acquire those skills is unfair So far so good. I agree with this. This is why I try to vote for people who support expanding access to education, for example. > You cannot base a fair market on the output of an unfair one, they are both unfair. Tim Cook's compensation is unfair. This is where you lose me. You can't connect the two like that. The unfair path to get to the position of CEO is a separate conversation to what that compensation should be to be considered fair.
ipaddr 5y ago
Why would they need that? They already have the job and could easily pay a MBA Duke grad for advise if needed which probably isn't. 12 years at IBM ending up as director advise could be bought but not sure how important it is. All other CEOs don't share that experience and get on fine without it.

microtherion 5y ago

The C-Suite includes the SVP Retail, and I trust that she could manage the basics of running a store. Tim himself has take occasional shifts in stores, as far as I know, and the technical SVPs should have the skills to staff the genius jobs — Craig Federighi definitely also would have the interpersonal skills. As for your second paragraph, keep in mind that there was a string of highly qualified CEOs who tried and failed to run Apple when it was a far smaller company — Sculley, Spindler, and Amelio were no dummies.

threatofrain 5y ago
Also I don't understand the instinct to make these kinds of comparisons. Apple also offers food to its employees. Can Tim Cook cook? It's such a stupid question. We don't expect that any employee can jump into any role anywhere.
- henryfjordan 5y ago
  You are so close to seeing the point. Tim Cook can't make and sell iPhones by himself. The C-Suite can't do it by themselves. Management can't do it. The designers can't do it. It's not until you consider the whole team, including store employees and assembly line workers that Apple can produce iPhones. It takes the WHOLE team. Why is 1 member of a team of people who all have to work together to achieve their shared goal paid 1400x more than average? Does that seem fair?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - microtherion 5y ago
    First of all, the 1400x is a miscalculation, because it attributes a sum to be earned out over many years to a single year. Yes, it takes tens of thousands of people to design, make and sell Apple's products. Tim would be the first to acknowledge that. Does this mean that each of them is equally valuable to the company and equally hard to replace? No. (Which is not a statement about their worth as _human beings_, mind you).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jka 5y ago

This may seem slightly pessimistic, but I'd guess that C-suite folks have enough connection with the goals, vision and details of the business to feel like they are connected to day-to-day events -- including an ability to speak about them confidently -- and perhaps even get involved with daily activities from time to time, although their (operational) value-add is completely and perhaps necessarily completely disconnected from the transactional business fundamentals. What we have going on here, I think, is a set of businesses which typically have (at minimum) two tiers - the "network tier" where your value is your personal connections, education, wealth and power: highly leveragable into success of a single or multiple businesses that you sit with, and the "production tier" - people who actually do the f'ing work of turning the network tier's demands into something that resembles it in reality. Businesses that don't have both aren't likely to thrive. Resulting questions: what are the true directional dependencies between those two groups, and how do they each sustain them? Could that be made healthier for all participants? I have no doubt that this has probably already been explored by economic philosophers in other, more precise terms: this is just my naive attempt to put the patterns into my own words.

jka 5y ago
(in hindsight I feel a bit like this was an apologist/acceptance-of-the-facts kind of comment. I don't think it's a great situation, and I'd love to discover that in fact, Tim Cook assembles 50x as many iPhones per day as the typical Wistron employee, or locks his office door and cold calls promising app developers for 30 hours a week on a gradually ramp-increasing success quota, but my sense is that it's unlikely to be the case. It's more likely, I expect, smooth talk, an unflustered manner, and pressure applied to people who are expected to deal with problems and won't retain their jobs if they don't)

gremlinsinc 5y ago

Honestly anybody in this position would be a fool not to take on advisers and consultants and they'd have access to the money for that. A business advisor/tutor could basically give them an MBA equivalency in like 3-4 years and they'd be just as good as Tim Cook.