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    Apple’s New CEO Salary: 378 Million Times As Much As Steve Jobs

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    The tech world was abuzz Monday when the compensation package for Apple's new CEO Tim Cook was released.

    The total for 2011?

    $378 million.

    This was comprised of $900,000 of cash salary and a $377 million stock grant.

    That total compensation, observers were quick to point out, was 378 million times as much as Apple's last CEO made. Steve Jobs, famously, took home $1 a year.

    So is Tim Cook's compensation outrageous?

    Actually, no, at least in my opinion.

    Steve Jobs was paid $1, in part, because he already held a big position in Apple's stock, thanks to an option grant when he returned to the company at the end of the 1990s. Steve's original option grant had exploded in value thanks to Apple's amazing renaissance, so by last year it was worth several billion dollars.

    The stock grant that Apple's new CEO, Tim Cook, got last year was not awarded to compensate him for his performance in a single year. It was awarded, presumably, to create an incentive for him to do an excellent job over many years--hopefully, a decade or more. Spread over that decade, even if Apple's stock does not appreciate from here, the compensation looks more normal (huge, but well within the bounds of the egregious amount of money that most of America's big-company CEOs take home).

    And let us not forget that Apple is now an absolutely massive company, with more than $100 billion of revenue and a $400 billion market capitalization. The idea that the company's CEO should have a modest salary (by CEO terms) and a 1% position in the company's stock doesn't strike me as outrageous.

    My colleague, Yahoo! Finance economics editor Dan Gross, however, disagrees. He thinks Tim Cook is now just another CEO-pig-at-the-trough. No matter what Cook does over the next decade, Dan points out, he'll still walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars. See Also: Tim Cook's Huge Compensation Package -- Check Out The Details Here.

    Tell us what you think in the comments below or on our Facebook page!

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    Yahoo! Poll

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    • Miyvars Saqartvelo  •  Toronto, Canada  •  3 months ago
      The College is the privilege not everyone can enjoy, but it is to be the main component of the success if the person is not gifted with the talent to make through without it.
    • mimi  •  Pleasanton, California  •  4 months ago
      And all of you people who purchase $500 I-Pads are helping to pay his salary!
    • Mike  •  Denver, Colorado  •  4 months ago
      Maybe he can afford now to bring back to the US some of the 600,000 jobs that Apple has sent to China where apple has its computers, ipods, and ipads built. Everyone talks about how great it is that Apple has a few 40,000 jobs here but no one mentions the 600,000 manufacturing jobs in China where they pay there workers an average of $200 a month. Of course why would he care about American workers with what he is making.
      • Jim 4 months ago
        Well said. Apple is the largest American company as far as profit reporting goes yet they make their products without American workers. A recent audit of Apple's overseas facilities found 5 workers to be under age, listed as children in the audit. Maybe they were teenagers but under the working age as reported. Remember, these are the people that took the American jobs that Apple gave to them overseas. Steve jobs was an innovator, Yes. Good for American workers, not really.
      • Stephen 4 months ago
        You pay $499 (to start!) for an iPad now. Are you willing to dbl that if made in America is stamped on the product?! We've priced ourselves out of a competitive marketplace with our Unions. They are too strong nowadays. Union bosses are pulling in salaries 2nd only to corporate execs! The Unions were great when there was inequality for the American worker, but that was back in the '20's!
      • BettyS 4 months ago
        Blame the unions? why not blame the new CEO's salary? If he made 2 million a year there would probably be enough to pay all the union workers thier wages.
    • Dr. Dale  •  4 months ago
      Nobody is worth that much
      • ®åçk çi†¥ 4 months ago
        Not even Bill Gates? :'(
      • RWBlue 4 months ago
        So who should decide who is worth what? People with no vested interest? People who want to divide the loot? Who? Oh, I'll bet the government should tell us all what we are worth and pay themselves whatever is left. Get real. Wealth is the goal for most and unattainable for all but a few. Connections, choices, luck, and mostly hard work and a lot of good decisions create the path to the top. Once wealth is accomplished it is rarely gauranteed.
      • Bb 4 months ago
        Thank heavens we have you around to decide how much each person is worth. Heaven forbid that representative of the people who own the company, who study these sorts of things full time, and who pay him decide.
    • John  •  Phoenix, Arizona  •  4 months ago
      The grotesque disparity between CEO pay and employee pay in the US continues to be an outrage and a source of economic decline. There is a huge difference between free enterprise/capitalism and looting the company. Is one person in a company really worth 1000 - 5000 times as much as the average employee???
      And fyi to all the thumbs-downers: I am not an uneducated pauper who is easily replaced by cheap labor overseas. I have had a successful 25 yr career and have invested well and could retire now if I wanted to. I fear for our children's future.
      • Anthony 4 months ago
        Hell no and one of these days something needs to be done about it. Either raise the pay for the average America worker or lower the pay for athletes,actors and other grossly overpaid people.I for one am tired of working my #$%$ off everyday just to live week to week. only to watch these very wealthy people spend their money helping others in other countries.
      • A Yahoo! User 4 months ago
        Anthony and John....you took the words right out of my mouth!
      • DB Train 4 months ago
        They might, it depends how much that one individual actually influences the company's profit. Some CEO's are worth the weight in gold. We can't just put a blanket opinion over all CEO's just because of those who make headlines for being paid gross bonuses while their company loses money and employees lose jobs.
    • webzeppelin  •  Hopkins, Minnesota  •  4 months ago
      Now we know why Apple overprices their products!
      • Ed 4 months ago
        Apple produces great products that are worth pay CEO greater Benefits.
      • tandi ketelslegers 4 months ago
        Why do we hate success these day - he deserves it their products are fantastic and even in a recession they are selling well.
      • Jason 4 months ago
        I think Apple products are fairly priced. They are manufactured to very high standards and are very reliable. Sure you can buy a Chevy for $15,000 or a Lexus for $50,000. You can call the Lexus overpriced too... but which would you rather have if you had your choice?
    • mc  •  4 months ago
      Still gotta pick up my jaw off the floor.
      378 MILLION in 3 months!
      That's more money than my entire hometown makes in a year and there are like 6 thousand people.
    • Chuck W  •  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania  •  4 months ago
      How many Americans could be employed making i-phones with this amount of money? Meanwhile, they pay Koreans and Chinese $5 per day to assemble their parts.
    • Rick  •  4 months ago
      This is why I won't buy an Apple product. They could easily make their products here and create American jobs, but instead they choose insane executive compensation and a Chinese made project.
    • Ratacon  •  4 months ago
      Im so tired of reading about how many millions someone else is making. I cannot relate to these people. I cannot feel their pain or happiness.Tell me about someone struggling day in and day out.I can only understand poverty and can relate to it.
    • Hey there  •  4 months ago
      Apple has been successful at driving demand for their products. So much so, they are able to rub it in our faces and we all still buy their stuff.
    • marshall s  •  West Jordan, Utah  •  4 months ago
      another prime example of corporate greed greed greed!!!!!!!!
    • Tom S  •  Norcross, Georgia  •  4 months ago
      Ridiculously high salary and this guy is no Steve Jobs. Why isn't Apple paying dividends if it has so much money to burn?
    • Bruno  •  4 months ago
      I'm using my apple computer to write this. Its my fault, sorry.
    • A Yahoo! User  •  4 months ago
      Ned the second grader can run any company that has a product that people are scrambling to buy..Apple has that product..Put Apple's CEO in charge of Sears or K-mart or any other company that is going broke and see if he can pull it out..I wonder if he would be so great?
    • Loyal W  •  Des Moines, Iowa  •  4 months ago
      Steve jobs and Warren Buffet only paid themselves $1 a year for 1 reason. Tax evasion. They only pay income tax and social security on $1. Millionaires pay themselves in other ways. Proffit sharing, bonus, and stock shares. They avoid taxes the rest of us pay by using these loop holes.
    • BGC  •  Chicago, Illinois  •  4 months ago
      Nobody is worth this kind of money. If he's so great, why can't he take his $900,000 a year and turn it into a fortune on his own? If he can he's worth what he's made. If he can't, he's not worth his salary.
    • Juan Sierra  •  Carlsbad, California  •  4 months ago
      I need me a job like that. where do I apply.
    • Wesley  •  Myrtle Beach, South Carolina  •  4 months ago
      My apple stock will go on the block this afternoon. Total greed with my stock.
    • twig  •  St Louis, Missouri  •  4 months ago
      if people will stop and think they can put a stop to all of this and just simply stop buying their products that will cut all of that big pay out and that is with any company

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