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Apple’s most popular board member is not Steve Jobs

Friday, February 25, 2011 · 9:05 am · 47 Comments

“There was a sort of Best Board Member vote at Apple’s shareholder meeting this week, and the outcome was a surprise,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune. “According to the SEC Form 8-K filed on Thursday, Steve Jobs was re-elected to the board of his own company with nearly 3.5 million fewer votes than Ronald D. Sugar.”

“Sugar, for those who don’t know their aerospace industry executives, is the the former CEO of Northrop Grumman who was selected in November to fill one of the seats on Apple’s board left vacant by the death of Jerry York last March and the forced departure of Google’s Eric Schmidt in 2009,” P.E.D. reports. “The least popular board member, by this measure, is Avon CEO Andrea Jung.”

Full article, with the official tallies for all BoD members, here.

Categories: News

Tags: aapl, Andrea Jung, Board of Directors, Ronald Sugar, steve jobs

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Comment Feed

47 Comments

Jersey_Trader

Friday, February 25, 2011 - 9:13 am · Reply

“The least popular board member” should have been Al Gore. Why is he on the board and what can he bring to the table?
- Zuno the Clown
  
  Friday, February 25, 2011 - 9:20 am · Reply
  
  If you can’t figure out what a career legislator who also served as Vice President of the United States brings to the table, then your head is much farther up your butt than you will ever know.
  - Delboy
    
    Friday, February 25, 2011 - 9:29 am · Reply
    
    That’s right.
    Couldn’t have said it any better
    - stephen
      
      Friday, February 25, 2011 - 11:01 am · Reply
      
      correct me if I’m wrong but…
      isn’t al gore the delusional man who claims to “have invented the internet”?
      - mccfr
        
        Friday, February 25, 2011 - 11:29 am · Reply
        
        Well, you’re wrong in as much as he never claimed any such thing.
        
        He did – with some clumsy phrasing – claim the “initiative in creating the Internet”: Vint Cerf – who arguably is the father of the Internet – did say While it is not accurate to say that VP Gore invented Internet, he has played a powerful role in policy terms that has supported its continued growth and application, for which we should be thankful.
        
        We’re fortunate to have senior level members of Congress and the Administration who embrace new technology and have the vision to see how it can be put to work for national and global benefit.
        
        But thank you for playing “Republican memes of yesterday”.
      - Bonkers
        
        Friday, February 25, 2011 - 11:34 am · Reply
        
        OK — you’re mistaken with that urban myth.
        Do your own homework, including:
        http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
        
        debunker
        
        Friday, February 25, 2011 - 7:00 pm · Reply
        
        Nice revisionism.
        
        He said he took the initiative in the creation of the internet in the 90′s – pretty outrageous when I was using the internet (arpanet) in the 80′s and it was really invented at the turn of the 70s. Other outlandish claims of his include the the movie Love Story was based on him and Tipper – this guy had about as much to do with the creation of the internet as Microsoft.
  - auramac
    
    Friday, February 25, 2011 - 12:51 pm · Reply
    
    Right on! Well said.
- Heroin
  
  Friday, February 25, 2011 - 9:24 am · Reply
  
  Ah, the irrational Al Gore bashing… Being in the White House for 8 years and Congress for another 15 might just give someone some insights into the way the world works. And since climate change will affect every human being in the next century that’s an important element in any strategic company’s planning.
  - Tom
    
    Friday, February 25, 2011 - 9:30 am · Reply
    
    I was with you right up to the climate change part. C’mon man. The man hyping “climate change”, which was global warming until we entered a period of cooling, is also making a fortune off it. Think a little yes?
    - Heroin
      
      Friday, February 25, 2011 - 10:20 am · Reply
      
      The science is the science. Stick your head in the sand if you want to. The interests that are fighting such science (and whose propaganda trickles down to you) have a serious interest in profiting from the status quo, and are making a hell of a lot more money than anyone else.
      - althegeo
        
        Friday, February 25, 2011 - 10:56 am · Reply
        
        You might have a point if the deforestation of the tropical rain forests was part of the picture that the Climate change crowd was crowing about.
        The tropical rain forests were offsetting man’s CO2 output until 30 years ago when the massive rain forest destruction began. Since then it’s been fossil fuels used by the developed nations are killing the planet. It should have been the third world countries are cutting down the rain forests and killing the planet.
        
        Memetech
        
        Friday, February 25, 2011 - 1:41 pm · Reply
        
        Think a little, why are the “third world countries” cutting down their rainforests? To meet the insatiable developed world’s need for wood, paper, protein and biofuels to name but four.
        
        Now don’t get me wrong, I like my meat and fast cars as much as the next man, but I don’t blame the poor nations for selling me what I want.
        
        Of course, if only we could put some sort of value on the carbon absorbing properties of a living rainforest, maybe the poor nations could feed their kids that way. A Carbon Trading scheme maybe, but oh no, you would want that would you, you evil little sh*t?
      - stephen
        
        Friday, February 25, 2011 - 11:02 am · Reply
        
        yes the sience /is/ science
        
        and it shows a corelation between the earths temperature and solar activity
        /not/ Co2
  - cwfrederick
    
    Friday, February 25, 2011 - 10:18 am · Reply
    
    yeah, except that NOBODY likes him. that’s why he made up all that crap about global warming (it has now been proven that much of the initial data was falsified, not to mention the earth IS going into a NATURAL cooling period). he made himself a money pot for the powers that be. so go ahead and buy your carbon credits losers, to al gores 5 sanctioned world conglomerates (look it up) that DO NOT protect habitat.
    - lukeskymac
      
      Friday, February 25, 2011 - 11:03 am · Reply
      
      you are insane
      - Chris f
        
        Friday, February 25, 2011 - 11:32 am · Reply
        
        ok, buddy. you’re like one of the sad animals on orwells farm who believes it every time the words change on the barn wall, except you don’t have enough insight to even see which ones are the pigs anymore.
    - kingmel
      
      Friday, February 25, 2011 - 11:14 am · Reply
      
      If you don’t believe that increased levels of CO2, methane, and similar gases that are scientifically proven to block IR radiation emissions from the Earth’s surface have the potential to slightly alter the equilibrium of the planet’s energy balance, then you are the idiot. We are very fortunate that the Earth has a very strong damping system, but that does not mean that there will not be serious effects down the road. I fail to understand why people persist in trashing concepts about which they appear to have little or no knowledge. It is illogical.
      - Chris f
        
        Friday, February 25, 2011 - 11:27 am · Reply
        
        if I’m an idiot I don’t know what that makes you, but you can be assured gullibility is a huge part of it. yeah, CO2 that we exhale traps radiation, it’s minuscule! and CO2 makes up only 0.3% of the atmosphere. not to mention water vapor traps, MUCH more radiation. use some common sense before you open your trap. so it only traps and does not block incoming radiation from the sun hmmm? common sense is your friend people. those that actually study science know how easily it can be manipulated.
- Arnold Ziffel
  
  Friday, February 25, 2011 - 9:30 am · Reply
  
  The whole premise of this “article” is bogus, thus your comment is meaningless.
- progressiveagentprovocateur
  
  Friday, February 25, 2011 - 10:06 am · Reply
  
  “Jersey_Trader”? Do you sell cows for a living?
  Ivy League Undergrad, Vandy Divinity Degree. Journalist, Vietnam Vet, Representative, Senator, Vice President of the US, business owner, venture capitalist, duly elected President that was robbed by the Rethugnicans on the Supreme Court.
  I’d say he could bring a whole lot to the table.
  - Krioni
    
    Friday, February 25, 2011 - 10:31 am · Reply
    
    “duly elected President”
    
    Come on, while the Supreme Court made a bad decision to step in, the recounts wouldn’t have made Gore President anyway. According to the Constitution, which defines “duly elected” as being by electoral college votes, not a simple national majority, Gore lost.
    
    This is kind of like the people on the right who think that Saddam Hussein was a direct supporter of Al Quaeda.
    
    Can we actually pay enough attention to be accurate in the things we are passionate about? Being passionate doesn’t make up for being wrong.
    - progressiveagentprovocateur
      
      Friday, February 25, 2011 - 11:28 am · Reply
      
      The Supreme Court has no standing in an election unless civil rights are involved. We do not have Federal elections- we have 50 state/commonwealth elections and each governs it’s own elections IAW it’s laws.
      The SCOTUS bigfooted without standing and reversed the Florida State SC order to recount the entire state. After the election was ‘certified’ by George W Bush’s Florida Campaign Chair/ Sec of State, the ballots were released to public inspection. When recounted, Gore won by all possible methodologies.
      The SCOTUS decision was along party lines- 5 Rethugs for Bush 4 Dems opposing.
      I’d call that a stolen election.
      - BlackWolf
        
        Saturday, February 26, 2011 - 5:18 am · Reply
        
        http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_election_recount?wasRedirected=true
        
        Your statement that Gore won by all possible methodologies is entirely wrong.
        
        Not based on fact.
        
        Please review and admit your mistakes.
Shadowself

Friday, February 25, 2011 - 9:32 am · Reply

The person who should be the least popular — and probably should have been kicked off the board YEARS AGO — is William Campbell of Intuit.

Intuit has been BARELY support the Mac for many, many years. Intuit’s Mac products are far inferior to Intuit’s Windows products and the available product diversity is much, much less than for thier Windows products.
Matt

Friday, February 25, 2011 - 9:32 am · Reply

As a conservative I dislike Gore’s politics, but it should be obvious that he provides enormous power and influence he gives Apple’s board. He’s enormously valuable to Apple regardless of ideology.
- Arnold Ziffel
  
  Friday, February 25, 2011 - 9:52 am · Reply
  
  Thank you !
- (another) matt
  
  Friday, February 25, 2011 - 10:33 am · Reply
  
  As a slightly left-of-center moderate (who really has no opinion on Gore’s politics) I applaud your self-control and objective reasoning. You are a rarity not only on MDN, but on the internet in general. I wish more people here could follow your example, instead of frothing at the mouth every time they hear the name of someone from an opposing viewpoint.
- thomas65807
  
  Saturday, February 26, 2011 - 8:35 pm · Reply
  
  In lobbying, the ONE key quality is the ability to gain face-to-face or other direct access to decision makers.
  
  There can be no doubt about Gore’s ability to gain access to hundreds on Capitol Hill: not only because of his long political career (House, Senate, VP) but also because of his high visibility in the environmental movement and related 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. These latter accomplishments mean Gore can influence, or at least get a hearing from, large groups of voters, which makes him relevant even to Congressmen in the opposite party. What other lobbyist can make this claim?
  
  If some uninformed Americans believe Gore invented the internet, that further magnifies his influence(!). Regardless of one’s personal opinion of Gore, his business value to Apple is clearly positive.
AAPL Shareholder

Friday, February 25, 2011 - 9:34 am · Reply

Dump Al Gore. That fat “anthropogenic global warming” shyster brings nothing but negatives to the table.
- progressiveagentprovocateur
  
  Friday, February 25, 2011 - 10:08 am · Reply
  
  I own Apple shares and have for over a decade. STFU or sell your shares.
DRMSSDB

Friday, February 25, 2011 - 9:38 am · Reply

Check out the graph in the original article. Only by severely shortening the y-axis is any difference apparent. There can be times when this is appropriate. This doesn’t seem to be one of them.
Sugar ~ 574 mill votes
Jung ~ 563 mill votes
Yes, a 11 mill vote difference, but Jung still had about 98% of Sugar’s vote total.
Buster

Friday, February 25, 2011 - 9:50 am · Reply

For those of you who don’t believe in global warming, don’t be put off by it because some people are alarmist and have a hidden agenda (they want to make money off of it). Warming is occuring…there is clear evidence that traditional crop zones like wheat for example are moving further north. Cyanobacterial (algal) blooms are moving North as the lakes are now warmer. Lyme disease, west Nile virus are also moving north. As a Canadian I would rather this stuff stayed in the US.
In the US, the situation is similar. You are getting stuff moving up from the Caribbean and Mexico. This is real folks.

Yes, various A-holes are trying to make a buck off of this (I bought a Mount St. Helen’s t-shirt years ago that had burn holes in it from a vendor beside the dust safety line). Look past them and base your opinion on what is actually occuring. The big question is whether MAN himself is accelerating it. That needs to be investigated, and if he is, how to mitigate it.

Keep an open mind.
- Predrag
  
  Friday, February 25, 2011 - 10:54 am · Reply
  
  Well, even if you don’t think that climate change was caused by man, you’d be a total idiot (or living on Mars) not to notice the changes everywhere. More importantly, you would be an idiot to oppose efforts to slow or revert the changes.
  
  Even if the Earth is going through some natural process, does that mean we will just let it destroy half of civilisation in the process? “It’s not me, so I don’t have to do anything about it!” Is that the attitude???
  
  Or is it because you live in Kansas, you don’t care, since you are safe from ocean levels rising (and eventually submerging 30% of coastal cities around the planet; New York is already getting worried about this).
  - althegeo
    
    Friday, February 25, 2011 - 11:08 am · Reply
    
    There are far more destructive changes that have occured on Earth in the fossil record. These changes occurred long before man evolved. How do you explain them?
    
    You would have to be an idiot to think that natural causes weren’t part of today’s changes. That and man’s destruction of the tropical rain forests could be the causes of climate change all by themselves.
    - Pirate
      
      Friday, February 25, 2011 - 11:22 am · Reply
      
      As the late, great George Carlin put it (paraphrasing):
      Man has come to believe we are soooo important. We believe we have suck a great impact because we are so impressed by our own creation/invention/etc. But, in reality, we have only been around a very short time on the earth. And, when the earth is done with us it will shake us off like a flea.
      
      Scientifically, we’ve been in a cooling cycle since the late 90′s. Al Gore is full of bull. His presentation ignores key facts and statistics. His own research has been found to be fabricated. Honest and accurate information can be found via the Manhattan Declaration: http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=1
    - Buster
      
      Friday, February 25, 2011 - 2:54 pm · Reply
      
      @Althegeo
      You exemplify the central problem here. Read my post carefully before you comment. WE all know that cycles have climate changes have occured (ice age anyone?). You miss the point!!!!!
      The question is…is man accelerating the rate of the current one. If so is it due to the excess GHG we are pumping out?
      Please just don’t state the merely obvious to anyone with half a brain. Keep an open mind and approach the problem with a scientific mind…is there a problem we are causing or not?
  - emmayche
    
    Friday, February 25, 2011 - 11:12 am · Reply
    
    Actually, if you were living on Mars, you’d notice the changes there, too. That’s because a majority of the added input energy to the system is coming from… (wait for it)…
    
    the Sun.
    
    And there’s no reasonable question that human activity contributes to climate change – the only question is how, if at all, significant that contribution is. This is where the cost/benefit calculation has to occur – is it costlier to remediate human-generated changes, or costlier to let them happen?
    
    This is the question that neither side can yet answer.
  - Chris f
    
    Friday, February 25, 2011 - 12:17 pm · Reply
    
    with all due respect predrag, you could not be more wrong. the science is consistently (even admitted by the Nobel POS prize winners) exaggerated. and even if all the billions of dollars in programs are actually implemented, we’d only see a 1 degree F change in temp in 50 years, THEORETICALLY. it’s a scam, no doubt about it.
    - Buster
      
      Friday, February 25, 2011 - 2:58 pm · Reply
      
      @Chris….and what about the Canadian Nobel Prize winners showing that climate change is occuring!!! Oh, I guess since that doesn’t fit your hypothesis it must be thrown out. Don’t let facts get in the way of your thoughts.
      - Chris f
        
        Friday, February 25, 2011 - 4:00 pm · Reply
        
        ha, good one, no you’re right, the intergovernmental panel on climate change refuted much of the global warming evidence, and instituted an internal investigation in a futile attempt to regain credibility, without thinking it through. of course the climate is changing, it’s been changing for eons! was that your only point? how about addressing some real issues. oh, that’s right, you’d rather give money to al gore and his wealthy friends than preserve habitat. why are canadians so nationalistic, to a fault? same thing with RIM trolls, no matter how inferior the blackberry is they still come on to Apple fan sites to troll their nonsense. here’s some more cud for you to chew on: the tiny increased temp (caused by the giant flaming ball of gas 8 million light minutes away, aka the sun, aka the source of almost all warmth on the planet) is what helps glaciers to grow by allowing more moisture into the air, and more precipitate to fall, thus feeding the glaciers that have been starved by the cold, dry, air
        
        Chris f
        
        Friday, February 25, 2011 - 5:10 pm · Reply
        
        that one came off kind of snarky, my apologies.
Ballmer's left nut

Friday, February 25, 2011 - 10:57 am · Reply

I’d say that besides Steve Jobs, the most popular member of Apple’s board must be…

Drum roll….

Steve Ballmer!!!

Without Ballmer’s vision, where would Apple be today? Or rather should I say Ballmer’s visionless Vista.
auramac

Friday, February 25, 2011 - 12:56 pm · Reply

Apple is very fortunate to have Al Gore on its board. And I’m happy he’s there.

I recall when Frank Zappa was taking on Tipper over music censorship and “ratings,” him saying “but I do like her husband. Presidential material.”
- Jimmy Carter
  
  Friday, February 25, 2011 - 1:34 pm · Reply
  
  The guy above got it right: Al Gore is a fat shyster.
daugav369pils

Friday, February 25, 2011 - 3:28 pm · Reply

Touche, Left Nut! Great humorous insight. Can one
speculate that Ballmer is really a secret agent for
Apple who works under a really deep,deep cover?
thomas65807

Saturday, February 26, 2011 - 8:37 pm · Reply

In lobbying, the ONE key quality is the ability to gain face-to-face or other direct access to decision makers.

There can be no doubt about Gore’s ability to gain access to hundreds on Capitol Hill: not only because of his long political career (House, Senate, VP) but also because of his high visibility in the environmental movement and related 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. These latter accomplishments mean Gore can influence, or at least get a hearing from, large groups of voters, which makes him relevant even to Congressmen in the opposite party. What other lobbyist can make this claim?

If some uninformed Americans believe Gore invented the internet, that further magnifies his influence(!). Regardless of one’s personal opinion of Gore, his business value to Apple is clearly positive.