The New York Times blows it, gets Apple CEO Tim Cook’s earnings spectacularly wrong

41 Comments

“The New York Times had a lot of fun with Tim Cooks’ compensation package Sunday,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune. “It led an article about excessive CEO pay with the rhetorical question: ‘Is any C.E.O. worth $1 million a day?’ To which it responded: ‘At Apple, the answer … is an emphatic yes.'”

“Then, dubbing Cook ‘The 378 Million Man,’ it published a graphic comparing his total compensation package, as compiled by Equilar, to various benchmarks: Number of $199 iPhones (1.9 million), number of $4.99 iPhone apps (75.8 million), number of years of employment in an iPad factory (60,919),” P.E.D. reports. “Only trouble is, Cook doesn’t make anywhere near $1 million a day.”

P.E.D. reports, “To collect the full 1 million shares of Apple stock (technically, restrictive stock units, or RSUs) Cook was granted in 2011, he has to stay at the company for 10 years… In fact, when you spread $376.2 million (the value of those 1 million RSUs the day they were granted) over 10 years, you get $103,000 a day. That’s a ton of money, but it’s not the $1 million dollars a day.”

Read more in the full article here.

41 Comments

        2. Libtards are the HATERS AND RACIST LIARS!!!!!

          They leave a mammoth path of misery and destruction in their wake.

          NY SLIMES SUCKS!

          APPLE INC IS GREAT!!!!!

      2. There is no need for the hate language. The facts, or lack thereof, speak for themselves. There used to be something called “Jounalistic Integrity”. Clearly that’s no longer in play. The NYT clearly has an agenda. To know which side of the aisle they fall is just a matter of matching up the political rhetoric. Only one side is trying to foment hate against corporate greed and inciting class warfare.

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        2. If by “glorify” you mean spending beyond your means on extravagant junkets, lifestyles, or to further their political agenda, and by “waged” you mean supporting and passing legislation that makes it difficult for working Anericans to succeed, and that maintains a permanent underclass, then Yes.

        4. No, I didn’t say or mean any of that.

          Rather than get into it, I’m just going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that English was not your first language.

  4. Yes, the days of simply reporting what something is are long gone, it’s all about advertising and how many people can we shovel ads to or get to pay for our content.

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  5. What the heck is going on at the NYT??

    Ever since Steve’s passing, it seems that everything they write about, pertaining to Apple, is some sort of ‘hit piece’ designed to foment animosity towards Apple.

    Did someone at Apple piss in the NYT breakfast cereal? Or are they just angry because Apple no longer gives them exclusives…

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      2. From a political perspective, the Obama administration has targeted people deemed rich, as needing to pay their fair share. Vague terms, but they allow the listener to ascribe their values to what that is, vs Obama telling you what he thinks rich is and what they should pay – just that it’s more.

        But the administration has also attacked businesses, mainly oil companies. Both are – IMHO – fairly sad moves, as President’s don’t typically:
        A. Attack their own people, demonize groups, for their own gain. Sometimes, but it’s rare. In this case, class warfare.
        B. Attack businesses. In this case, oil companies that basically power our transportation business, from cars, to trucks or planes…

        That administration can do whatever they want in terms of politics and trying to pass bills they feel do them – and/or the country – the best.

        It’s just that with this approach, why wouldn’t the Administration target Apple’s profits? Apple has a massive amount of cash, is the largest company in the world.

        But this is politics, so attacking a popular company that people like, that wouldn’t do so well in an election year, correct? What about after the election, when he’s not running for another term? What’s to stop the Admin. from going after large corporate profits? I mean, why not, based on their philosophy?…

        One saving grace. Roughly 70% of their $1b in cash is now offshore. Can’t be touched. Whew.

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  7. The $378 million salary was quoted on the local Dallas news this morning as well. I was only half listening, but I think they said it was for this year as well and not over 10 years. I’m sure their source was this NYT article.

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  9. The NYT editors think they are going for a Pulitzer. It is standard journalstic practice to follow up your own hard-hitting “investigative” piece (Apple’s manufacturing labor problems in China) with stories that reinforce or complement the theme.

    Ask the NYT publisher how much they pay their own “outside contractors” (freelancers). The company has not raised wages in over 40 years and In fact, has trimmed payments while making copyright ownership grabs and stopped hiring freelancers who refused to sign over ownership of photographs and stories.

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  10. The NYT is run and staffed by Leftists. Leftists believe it is unfair for you to have more money than they do. Leftists also believe that any action that furthers their cause is honorable, so they have no problem fabricating “facts”, or building straw men to knock down. Fomenting class warfare is more important at the NYT than is simply reporting the news of the day.

    Reply

    1. The NYT is run by corporate people who have vested interest in doing what Wall Street wants them to do – there’s no “Left” or “Right” involved.

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      1. No, no, Arnold! People who do bad things must be leftists. The right wing are all noble, caring, beautiful people.

        The owners of tobacco companies, the owners of Ford knowingly putting out the Pinto that would fry people, the owners of companies that knowingly use or dump poisons in our food, water and air, the Klan, the owners of the financial companies that precipitated the current multi-year financial crisis, and W who changed the regulations allowing them to do so — they must all be leftists.

        Reply

  12. Dingin201 is pretty much correct. Notice the ads with the “Ad Choices” blue logo on them – those are via Google’s AdSense. However, MDN is large enough to not only deploy Google’s ads, but use an agency on top, or work direct deals with other advertisers. Everyone in this space is going to use Google Ads, in fear of not being ranked highly if they do not. So those lame ads are out of MDN’s control.

    That said, the rest of the ads flow nicely. Parallels, ZAGGfolio, etc… All Apple-centric ads. And now you know.

    Reply

  13. I dislike the NY Times on some levels, but the use of the scripted and transparent “class warfare” comment handed down from the GOP is an indicator that Spark’s leftist perspective is full of conservative crap from the right

    Like most American daily newspapers, The Times is staffed by earnest journalists with middle class values who work very hard to report the truth with facts and for the most part, it does an excellent job (unlike Fox news on television) and some British papers.

    Se editors simply are overplaying their hand on the Apple labor story. You can open the paper on any given day and find many very good and accurate stories that simply mirror societal ills. It just so happens that we’re in a deep recession. During any era like this, tax rates will (and should) be carefully scrutinized and even re-evaluated and this is what’s happening.

    By the way, “class warfare” cuts both ways. Plenty of ordinary American laborers really are underpaid by wealthy corporations. And again, it’s ironic that The New York Times itself is one of those companies owned by the same wealthy class that benefits from current tax structure.

    Believe it or not, journalists just don’t try to turn everything into politics.

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  14. This article and the whole Foxconn issue is intolerable to me- I just lost a friend or two because of their antagonistic remarks about Apple and their belief that Tim Cook makes too much money no matter what he’s being paid. I believe in taking care of the poor, sick, and elderly, but to make money is not a crime. I’ve always been a square peg- my conservative friends are pro-Apple, and the Occupy crowd seems to think that Apple’s success is evil. Why not Google? Why not Microsoft? I’m sick of it all. Maybe Timothy leary was right- tune in, turn on, drop out. The Times and Fox News are BOTH detrimental to my health. One thing anyone who knows me must not do- don’t be trashing Apple! It’s not business, it’s personal.

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  15. “Spectacularly” wrong might be a bit of an overstatement. Tim is SPECTACULARLY overcompensated with stock. $100k/day is spectacularly absurd. No human being needs to make that kind of money, and Apple’s board feeds the problem by approving that kind of thing. Tim has said that money is not a motivator for him. I believe him. What kind of a-hole would ever need that level of compensation? At some point, a CEO needs to be the kind of person who does something because he/she wants to, not because he/she wants to make a billion dollars.

    Again, the NYT did NOT get it “spectacularly” wrong.

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  17. Dear NYT TechTards:
    To collect the full 1 million shares of Apple stock (technically, restrictive stock units, or RSUs) Cook was granted in 2011, he has to stay at the company for 10 years

    It’s called INCENTIVE. It accomplishes two brilliant things:
    1) It keeps Cook at Apple.
    2) Cook benefits from making Apple successful.

    So please NYT TechTards: Either do your homework or STFU. You can’t seem to stop making fools of yourselves regarding Apple.

    Reply

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