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The counter argument is that Tim Cook is not 1447x more responsible for apple’s success than the average apple employee, because there are no doubt many people

by Joeri 5y ago

The counter argument is that Tim Cook is not 1447x more responsible for apple’s success than the average apple employee, because there are no doubt many people within apple who contributed greatly to that success. It is also not a given nobody could take over the CEO job, because people were predicting the downfall of apple when Cook took over from Jobs, and he proved them wrong.

newyankee 5y ago
This may be true, but can we argue that founder- primary shareholders who own > 10% of companies and worth billions like Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg contribute > 10,000X of average employee. This point can be taken in any direction and a question that society should answer with more data and rationality.
- Joeri 5y ago
  I can agree about Musk being essential to the success of his companies. Zuckerberg strikes me as more of a "right place at the right time" kind of guy and many people in the same place would have done as well or better. Bezos ... I don't know what to think of that guy. Just because someone is a billionaire doesn't mean they owe those billions to their own skill. Untangling the web of who contributed what and where luck came into play is hard. Reasonable people can disagree, and this is why the outrage exists about CEO pay. The people that are outraged see the CEO's as profiting from the hard work of their workforce, and not contributing in proportion to their pay. Again, reasonable people can disagree about that, and it may be impossible to objectively determine what the truth is.
barry-cotter 5y ago
It’s not about whether anybody at Apple could take over. It’s whether they could do as good a job. Doing 1% better than the next candidate is worth a lot when you’re running a company worth over a trillion.
- Joeri 5y ago
  Well, what if there is someone waiting in the wings who could do an even better job? Cook did better than Jobs, and nobody expected him to.

by Joeri 5y ago

newyankee 5y ago

This may be true, but can we argue that founder- primary shareholders who own > 10% of companies and worth billions like Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg contribute > 10,000X of average employee. This point can be taken in any direction and a question that society should answer with more data and rationality.

Joeri 5y ago
I can agree about Musk being essential to the success of his companies. Zuckerberg strikes me as more of a "right place at the right time" kind of guy and many people in the same place would have done as well or better. Bezos ... I don't know what to think of that guy. Just because someone is a billionaire doesn't mean they owe those billions to their own skill. Untangling the web of who contributed what and where luck came into play is hard. Reasonable people can disagree, and this is why the outrage exists about CEO pay. The people that are outraged see the CEO's as profiting from the hard work of their workforce, and not contributing in proportion to their pay. Again, reasonable people can disagree about that, and it may be impossible to objectively determine what the truth is.

barry-cotter 5y ago

It’s not about whether anybody at Apple could take over. It’s whether they could do as good a job. Doing 1% better than the next candidate is worth a lot when you’re running a company worth over a trillion.

Joeri 5y ago
Well, what if there is someone waiting in the wings who could do an even better job? Cook did better than Jobs, and nobody expected him to.