Skip to footer

$75 million? Apple CEO Tim Cook says, 'No thanks'

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, has said he won't take the quarterly $75 million payments he would earn under a new Apple employee policy. 

|
Reuters
Apple CEO Tim Cook is shown at an event in March.
  • By Matthew Shaer

Apple CEO Tim Cook is turning down a payout worth approximately $75 million. 

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, Apple said it had instituted a new policy whereby employees will be eligible to collect a quarterly dividend on shares of restricted stock. Cook's dividends would be worth approximately $75 million per quarter, Reuters reports. But Cook, who received just shy of $400 million in compensation last year, is requesting that he not receive the dividends on the restricted stock. 

Neither Cook nor Apple publicly gave a reason for the move. So hey, why did Cook walk away from such a big pay day?

Well, over at All Things D, John Paczkowski chalks it up to "classiness." It's a "remarkable" gesture "in an era when entitlement, greed and arrogance are so often part of the job description," Paczkowski writes. "Which is not to say that he’s not reaping some benefits here. There’s a lot of mileage for Apple in a symbolic gesture like this, and Cook profits when Apple’s overall value increases."

Since taking over as CEO of Apple in 2011, Cook has assembled an impressive track record. 

Cook is the top-rated chief executive in the country, according to an recent survey from Glassdoor. "Employees appear to think that Cook has managed to keep Apple’s core corporate culture intact," writes Hayley Tsukayama of the Washington Post. "And he’s certainly been able to keep the company’s momentum going – though the launch of the iPhone 4S and the third generation of the iPad – feats that Apple is happy to reward." 

Not that there haven't been a few hurdles. Among them: a recent New York Times report alleging that employees at Foxconn, which builds iPhone and iPad parts for Apple, were underpaid and overworked. In March, Cook dropped in at a Foxconn plant in China. It was a kind of repeat trip: In 2010, in the wake of a series of high-profile suicides, Cook, then the COO, reportedly traveled to China to investigate working conditions at several Foxconn factories. 

Next up for Apple? A new iPhone, probably. Recent reports have indicated that the next iPhone, presumably titled the iPhone 5, will likely ship with a better processor, sharper graphics, a rejiggered chassis, and maybe even a hulking 4-inch display. (By comparison, the current iPhone packs a 3.5-inch screen.) Also: 3D maps. If you believe the rumors, look for a September or October launch date. 

For more tech news, follow us on Twitter @venturenaut. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to $75 million? Apple CEO Tim Cook says, 'No thanks'
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Horizons/2012/0525/75-million-Apple-CEO-Tim-Cook-says-No-thanks
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe