“Tim Cook has got a lot of favorable press for confronting an investor group at the last Apple (AAPL) stockholder meeting and telling them that he does not check the ‘bloody ROI’ when he has to do the ‘right thing,'” Aswath Damodaran writes for Seeking Alpha.
“In fact, he went further and suggested that any investor that does not believe in Apple’s social mission should sell Apple stock. Since everyone else seems to have been selling Apple stock ever since Cook became CEO, I guess adding one more group to the mix will not make much of a difference,” Damodaran writes. “At the risk of sounding like a moral reprobate, I take issue with both what Cook said at the meeting, and how he said it… I am an Apple stockholder, I am not a member of the NCPPR, I am supportive of good environmental policies and find your response to be troubling, because it reveals a mindset that I would not want in the CEO of a company that I own stock in, for four reasons:”
1. Social responsibility comes with a price tag.
2. If you choose to be socially responsible, as a publicly traded company, you have to be transparent.
3. If you are transparent, and you truly respect your stockholders, you have to give them a say.
4. If you give stockholders a say in CSR spreading, and they tell you no, you have to listen.
“I want publicly traded companies to be socially responsible, but not at the expense of becoming basket cases, to bear costs being good corporate citizens, while being transparent about these costs, to trust their stockholders by giving them a say on whether they are okay with that mission, while taking no for an answer,” Damodaran writes. “I don’t want sanctimonious CEOs to define social responsibility for me, to be generous with my money and then refuse to let me know how much they have spent (let alone give me a say).”
“So, what should Tim Cook have done in response to the questions from the NCPPR reps? First, he should have responded with respect. After all, he is an employee, albeit a very highly paid and elevated one, and these are the owners of the business that he works at,” Damodaran writes. “Second, he should have conceded that Apple spends money doing the right thing and being socially responsible.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Apple’s Tim Cook and his dilemma over sustainability and climate change – March 3, 2014
Tim Cook gets angry over shareholder proposal for environmental spending transparency, says those who disagree should get out of Apple stock – March 1, 2014
Ever wonder why they’re always SEEKING Alpha and never FINDING Alpha?
Because of dipshits like this guy.
Aye yi yi yi yi!
Well said. I would appear that if the NCPPR don’t like Apple’s alpha boss, they should try to vote him out. See how well that flies.
This is just more rhetoric from wall street who just want to be seen as the boys in control and don’t like being told what to do.
What the NCPPR should do is just as Tim suggested. Take it’s money and go elsewhere…………….or shut with this underhanded attempt at gaining public attention. It didn’t work for Icahn. It won’t work for these guys either.
And Aswath Damodaran should do the same, if he is concerned about Apples leadership. The “right thing” in Apple terms is skating to where the puck will be. That Aswath Damodaran and NCPPR are know-nothings with short planning horizons demonstrates their deficiencies, not Apples.
Mr Cook was generous in his offer of advice for NCPPR. They should take his suggestion. Judging from the stockholder support for their proposal, they will be pretty lonely, but it is their choice.
Tim is an owner too. He owns more of Apple then NCPPR, ever will.
Be that as it may, Tim does not own enough Apple stock to unilaterally dictate what Apple does. I support the concept of corporations accepting social responsibility, though — not being an Apple stockholder — I haven’t looked at how much Apple is spending on what. But if Tim Cook does not believe that he is responsible to the owners of the company (i.e., the stockholders), even at one remove through the Board of Directors, then likely he is the one who should sell his stock and find something else to do. If he wants unfettered authority, he is free to do what he likes with his own money; if he wants to be the CEO of a public company, he should remove his foot from his mouth, apologize for his intemperate remarks, and get back to work improving the stock price and, yes, the bloody ROI.
Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. I think he handled it perfectly.
it’s becoming clearer why Cook shitcanned Scott Forstall.
Well, that’s it folks! Emmayche says Timmy can’t focus Apple’s attention on making iPhones accessible to the blind because it ignores the ROI!
Chasing ROI for its own sake is stupid and self-defeating. It leads to companies making bad decisions that hurt their long-term viability. You know the best way to improve the stock price and increase the ROI? Produce great products and adopt practices today that will be NECESSARY tomorrow.
Apple doesn’t need to be the dog chasing its own tail, and the fact that Tim Cook has the foresight and the gumption to avoid that trap makes it clear he’s the best man for the job.
What short memories these idiots have, Since when did SJ run that company based on what he was told to do by the stock holders? If he had then these morons would not now have had a fraction the value in ‘their’ company and living off the very nice profits thank you. Indeed Apples great rise was precisely because it WAS run by a man far more singular than Cook will ever be doing what he thought was right and living or dying on those decisions. Most companies die because they start to be run by committee and the stock holders all start to think they know whats best though rarely actually agreeing what that actually is. I feel rather reassured that Cook showed his mettle here because the last thing I want is the inmates from the asylum choosing another soft drink bozo running the business especially as we don’t have SJ there to come back and save it. I wonder at times how the human race ever managed to climb down from the trees.
Well said. How quickly they forget.
Exactly!
How about allowing us to vote on where they place their factories? That effects ROI. How about letting us vote on their product line? Who the hell is Tim Cook to decide what HE thinks will sell and what will not. This things affect MY money. Even the color of the phone, who the hell is he to decide with MY money. Every time he hires somebody he is hiring them with MY money! I deserve respect and not once has he ever asked for my approval for anything.
Let’s start a revolt. I want access to his daily calendar and all of us share holders should vote.
—or, I can invest in Apple Stock because I trust Tim Cook to do the right thing. Hmm.
Let’s stick with your first paragraph. And I want to have a say in what he wears to work while representing the company that has my money………………..
How about make him wear a clown nose when ever he appears in public?
The world is a better place.
The ROI is amazing.
You are just a small, greedy, short sighted thing…. 😉
If Steve was still around we would not even be having this conversation. He cared about the company and its products and innovation and didn’t give a shit about stockholder value.
No. That is not at all true, Damian. Steve Jobs understood that the way to increase shareholder value, grow a company, and hire people, was to design insanely great products and sell a huge quantity of them. Steve Jobs gave a “great shit” about stockholder value.
A favorite pastime of MDN was to give a running tally of how many times more valuable Apple’s stock was than Dell’s.
If you really believe what you just wrote, than you don’t have a complete understanding of how capitalism works.
I agree with emmayche. CEOs answer to the board of directors. The board of directors represent the interests of the shareholders.
The shareholders ultimately call shots in publicly traded corporations.
Apple is a bit unlike most American corporations in that it is less focused on the next quarterly statement and is more focused on long-term prospects.
What Tim Cook should have done is not lost his cool and provided a better answer to the question as to why going all “Earth Muffiney Green” is good for shareholders. I suspect there was some pre-existing bad blood we aren’t privy to.
To those who say that corporations’ first responsibility is to the earth and the environment and to pay more taxes than tax law requires, and to ‘wash the feet of the orphans’ and all that, I say: Grow up, get a job, be successful, pay taxes, buy $50k of Apple stock (so you have a clue about what it’s all about), and annoy a liberal.
I have considerably more than that in Apple stock and I believe every corporation’s first responsibilities are to act morally, operate responsibly, with the long term welfare of humanity in mind, and financially support the government that supplies it with required services, such as roads and bridges, defense against foreign aggression, and care for those who can’t care for themselves.
What would SJ have told them to do? I expect it would have included wording stronger than “bloody”.
+1000
Great article: http://www.loopinsight.com/2014/03/03/tim-cook-doing-whats-right/
Calm down, Asswart Damomoron… when you do the right thing, AND you only make really great products (that obviously a LOT of people are buying), ROI and stock price will fall into place.
I wonder what “do the right thing” is? I think it is different for different people. Maybe Tim ought to start using that excess cash to start buying all the guns back. Some people think that’s the right thing to do.
It’s a movie directed by a racist about racist who don’t really understand that racism has become more of a business than a national disgrace, which oddly enough, makes it a perpetual national disgrace.
Fun for the whole family!!!
Guns?? Huh? How about “do the right thing” by making software that isn’t garbage.
Mail is amateurish and getting even more buggy – and STILL does not handle attachments well.
Maps was a snipe at Google but is such a magnificent FAIL that people devote entire blogs to its awfulness.
Finder is slow, clunky and bug ridden. No Cut command after all these years and Apple has not made even one attempt at window management yet. Path Finder kicks its butt.
Preview, Image Capture, TextEdit, Stickies, etc, all hopelessly dated and in need of an overhaul.
No creative pro uses any of Apple’s “pro” apps. Apple’s use of Aperture and Pixelmator benchmarks on the Mac Pro spec page is a sad joke. Apple should outright own the creative space but ceded it to Adobe, who now rents its apps. Thanks a bunch Cook. The Mac Pro is one bright spot but you can’t get peripherals.
iWork is useless for serious office productivity. Go ahead, send your Office buddy a Numbers file or Pages doc and see what he says.
iLife has passed its prime, any ‘updates’ just make it less appealing. Read the iMovie reviews.
Apparently Apple builds the app and then guts the dev team, leaving a trail of outdated UIs and bugs. This while sitting on enough cash to buy several nations…
No Cut command? Are you fscking blind?
The rest of your puerile diatribe I leave for others to eviscerate.
In short: don’t like it, fsck off back to Microshite!
Jesus!
=:~)
How old are you? 12? A twat like you using big words is just ridiculous. Grow up and learn to debate facts.
Look at the Finder, Cut is there but grayed out. Are YOU blind?
Pages: 2 stars.
Numbers 2.5 stars.
Keynote: 3 stars.
iLife apps are at 2 or 2.5 stars.
Apple is the richest co. in the world and it’s churning out crap.
I’m in the creative field, the Pro Apps are rated higher but do you know how many serious professionals use Final Cut after it got sodomized?? None that I know of.
FCPX, Aperture etc, do ok, but only if you’ve never used competing products. Kia gets good reviews for its cars too, but only because the reviewers have never driven a 328i.
I’ve used Apple products for 30 years, never owned a PC. Apple has never done this poorly.
Cook’s Apple is fat and lazy and he needs to go.
“Doing the right thing” is one of the reasons I am passionate about Apple and buy most of their products.
Liar. You buy their products because they are good.
1000% behind Tim on this one.
Put the bigots of all flavors in their place! I have held my Apple investments for over 15 years in large part because of the high standards of the company and their consistent will to stand in the face of petty tyrants who always seem to think they know better.
That has also proven to be a sound financial decision!
You are saying those investors who question ’s hidden expenditures on “green projects” are bigots?
You’re an idiot.
A specific point.
Followed, of course, by a COMPLETELY unnecessary personal insult.
thank you for the clarification, Sniveling Weasel.
Tal was a better chess player.
had it not been for Tal’s health issues, perhaps.
The reason for the 2nd amendment is to protect against oppressive government. The ability to shoot criminals in the face is just a side benefit.
The sooner you Libs figure that out, the better.
BTW: The reason the psychos go to public schools to wreak destruction is because public schools are GUN FREE ZONES and they know everyone inside is unarmed and helpless.
Wow! That’s just sad. You have a gun; you’re mad… so you go to a place where you know people are defenceless… now that’s good ole gun-tottin’ courage.
when will stockholders realize they don’t own the company. they only own stock. yes, they can influence a company’s board, but they don’t direct it. they don’t have a claim on company assets nor a claim corporate decision making.
that is the responsibility in the executive team and the board of directors. if you don’t like it, either replace the board or sell the stock. you chose to buy stock – you were not forced.
Claim on assets? Stockholders are not creditors. They collectively own the company.
Shareholders do not own the company. They own stock which gives them certain rights in the company. That is pretty much the consensus of legal scholars.
The concept is related to how voters do not own the country.
ws, it appears that it is *you* who needs to realize something. Stock holders *do* own the company. That’s what stock is- a share of ownership in the company. Try looking it up sometime.
Shareholders don’t get to loot the company, though. It isn’t as simple as “do what makes the current shareholders happiest” – it is supposed to be “do what is best for the long-term success of the company.”
That might mean doing things the current batch of shareholders don’t like. If they care enough, they can replace the board.
I have a degree in Finance and Economics. You are wrong. Stockholders own a share of stock. There are certain limited privileges attached to that share that may include voting for specifically constrained things. The ownership rights are limited. They are not even investors in the company per se as the money they paid for the stock did not go to the company directly, but went to the previous owner of the shares. It is a convoluted relationship involving what kind of stock, what other stock may exist, and priorities. . .
And when will you realize that Tim Cook doesn’t own the company either. Nor did Steve Jobs. They are employees. Without the shareholder purchasing shares there would be no money thus there would be no company. There would be no insanely great products. The two Steve’s would have been working in their garage still. So keep things in perspective. And there would be no board of directors. Even if one of them did invent the Internet.
No, that’s wrong, too. The money in Apple does not come from the shareholders. Only the original seed money when Apple went public or when Apple issued additional stock to raise more capital can that be said. The money in Apple came from the efforts of that initial investment, plus the work of Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, Jony Ive and the rest of Apple’s team. The current stockholders did not pay one thin dime into Apple. . .
Sound of thundering barbarians approaching the gate growing louder. While Tim obsesses over the hoax of global warming, his company is disappearing in the rear view mirror. Go into ANY phone company store and look around. Go ahead. I dare you.
Disappearing in the rear view mirror? They’re number one in every segment they’re focused on in the only thing that matters…the bottom line profit….the ROI. That’s why all of this discussion is numbnutical.
That’s because most phone company stores are filled with dozens of identikit plastic featurephones, or base-level smartphones.
Take those away, and they’d have maybe a dozen or so to sell.
And just as a aside, there’s a photo in one of the UK’s daily newspapers of a young woman in the Crimea taking a ‘selfie’ in front of a Russian armoured vehicle. Guess what phone she’s using…
Yup, an iPhone 5 or 5S, the Apple logo clearly visible.
The only people who are disappearing in the rear-view mirror or those companies desperately producing more and more variations of a poor copy of the iPhone, struggling to grab a tiny piece of the bit of pie that Apple has left over from the iPhone feast.
Don’t bother Jay. The leftist media has these sheeple already.
A billion people living under a totalitarian regime is irrelevant, they’re building our gear for pennies, oooh but let’s make sure we’re carbon neutral and PVC free.
The fallacy is that you have to buy into climate change to support green. Let’s go green simply because it’s the right thing to do and quit trying to force me to accept global warming as a prerequisite.
Barring an unforeseen new iconoclastic product, Cook’s days at are hopefully numbered. A group representing legitimate shareholders asks the CEO for actual numbers of expenditures on “green fantasy” projects and then is rudely rebuffed under the guise of “it’s the right thing to do.” Perhaps Cook’s exit as CEO is actually “the right thing to do.”
That proposal got the response it deserved. I was glad to see Tim Cook get mad about it. The idiots from that “I can’t think tank” represent 3% of the votes. They got more time than they deserved. Pick a topic worth discussing on that stage, and Tim and the BOD would have addressed it.
uh. how investors’ money is spent in clandestine expenditures isn’t “a topic worth discussing” at a stockholder meeting of a publicly-held corporation? Especially clandestine, politically-driven expenditures? Hello?
It’s not investors money, botty. It’s Apple’s money until Apple distributes it.
oh yes it is.
When you have a degree in Economics and Finance, come back and tell me that again.
nonetheless.
“Green fantasy projects”? Apparently you’re in the 3% crew of irresponsible numbnuts that have no clue what “green” means. Every major corporation has green initiatives and they know that in the long run, those policies will not only be good for the environment, but will be good for business.
so says you.
Rudely rebuffed under the sanctimonious self-righteousness of a typical green global crusader. Gee, what a surprise.
The indignation and more importantly non-answer speaks volumes.
Agreed. If nothing game changing or redux revolutionary is forthcoming Tim should step aside.
Marginal to magical, depending on your point of view, improvements to existing product lines are not going to move the needle in a big way. That we have seen time and again.
With all that idle cash Apple dipping its toes while competitors dominate is simply inexcusable. It is what it is …
If I remember, their request was shot down by something like 97% of the other shareholders.
Exactly right. Sustainability of resources and not poisoning the Earth. Whether one believes in global warming or not, there’s some things that shouldn’t occur in business….Love Canal.
The US federal regulations on environmental protection seem to many folks as a burden on business, when in fact, in years to come, those very same regulations will be the ones that help businesses survive in a world of shrinking resources.
“I’m sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics. All I want is the truth. Just gimme some truth”…John Lennon 1971
Those legitimate investors were asking just that…truth. Truth being what are the numbers being spent within a publicly owned corporation on so-called “environmental concerns” and why are those expenditures not available to stockholders?
I think you’re…
“Walking on thin ice
I’m paying the price
For throwing the dice in the air
Why must we learn it the hard way?”
– John Lennon from “Double Green Fantasy” LP
The stock price will take care of itself. Unless he manipulates the market, stock price is out of Tim’s hands too.
Another dipwad making another ridiculous comment. If you don’t like the way Apple manages itself, invest somewhere else, just like Tim Cook said. And nowhere did Tim Cook say he didn’t care about Apple’s bottom line and ROI.
Just another idiotic ‘moral reprobate’ (his words) spewing sitting-in-his-mom’s-basement non-knowledge of running a company the size of Apple or with the social impact of a company the size of Apple. So Damodaran, please keep the noise level down before we call the cops on you for disturbing the peace – by yourself.
All this worry about the stock price.
Worry about Apple making great products first and the rest will sort itself out!
The guy who wrote that seeking average piece is a ‘yard. it’s time all corporations were forced to exercise corporate and social responsibility. This obviously includes the banks. Governments are all bought out, so it’s kind of up to the people, and not investment analists.
Doing the right thing has been part of Apple’s way of doing business all along. Tim gave the example of Apple’s awareness of the needs of blind people without considering the ROI on that effort.
Those of you who bought Macs in the 1980’s may recall that the printed manual had a section in large print explaining how visually impaired people could enable the built-in accessibility features to suit their needs.
I would never imagine that the cost of doing that was covered by the number of additional sales of Macs to visually impaired people, but Apple was correct in doing the right thing way back then and is even more correct in doing the right thing these days.
I’ve no idea how Tim Cooks angry reaction to the NCPPR has been received in the US, but he certainly impressed a lot of non-Apple supporters in the UK.
Here’s a link to a newspaper website – check out the comments –
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/03/tim-cook-climate-change-sceptics-ditch-apple-shares
What is particularly interesting about that link is that many of the people making comments on the Guardian web site tend to be very hostile to Apple. Look at any other Apple related story on their site and the comments are filled with anti-Apple hysteria.
Tough situation to be in… if you are not green enough, you get protested and lambasted. Perceived as too green then the stockholders get irate.
It is a balancing act for certain. It is one thing to be principled and to expend a lot of financial resources on green energy and sustainability when you are a privately held company like Sierra Nevada Brewing. Totally another thing when you report to stock holders and this “green campaign” is not specifically part of the company mission.
That is the sad joke here, and for some reason, liberal toerags are blind to it.
Explain to me how a consumer products company that is dedicated to selling more and more and more devices that last perhaps 3 years is ‘green’.
The COMMUNIST country that produces Apple’s products imprisons its dissidents, has mandatory forced abortion for over one child *and* has 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world.
Please, explain how *that* is ‘green’.
Also explain why *every* person I know that says they’re ‘green’ drives a large automatic car or SUV, lives in a 3000sqft house and eats out every day.
“Green campaign.”
Hahahahahaha.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
In other news, studies have shown that humans can care about more than one thing at a time. For example, saying you care about asparagus doesn’t mean you don’t care about genocide in the Congo.
Here’s what this asshat “journalist” (and so many like him) flat out doesn’t get:
You CHOOSE to invest (or not) in a company. Part of that choice should be based on your opinion of the leadership and how they’re running the company. If at some pout, you no longer feel confident or no longer agree with said leadership, you can CHOOSE to SELL your holdings.
All of that should be completely independent of the leadership and their decisions on how to best run the company.
You buy/sell stock as an investment in the vision and leadership of a company in bringing the company’s products and services to market.
If you don’t like how that’s being done, sell your stock and start your own company. Run it as you wish, and if people have faith in YIU, they might buy YOUR stock.
At NO time should an investor (like Icahn) try to run the company. That’s what you “hired” the CEO to do when you bought the stock. Not doing the job as you’d like? “Fire” the CEO by selling the stock.
Nice to see some sanity exists after all.
The author of this ridiculous attack on Tim Cook has missed one salient point.
It is physically impossible to magically increase the Rate On Investment when you have several Pirates screwing with the stock price almost daily.
ROI is Return On Investment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_on_investment
He believes in advocating for gay marriage and demonizing potential shareholders who do not believe the global warming claims!
sounds like he has his priorities right to me……
Frack off Aswath Damodaran who writes for Seeking Alpha. While you do so, keep in mind the point of being alive. It never was about accumulating wealth, you lost fool.
I suspect that Apple’s typical customer is far more likely to be concerned about issues like climate change, equality for all sexualities and accessibility for disabled people than, say Samsung’s. Apple’s image is extremely important for goodwill and to remain a market leader. Bad publicity, for example surrounding working conditions in Asia, or from groups like Greenpeace, does have an impact on sales. Apple could make more profit by making a bigger phone, a cheaper phone, or by ignoring the impact its devices have on the environment, or by forcing factory workers to work longer hours for less pay… but I’m glad they don’t and that’s why I am a loyal customer.
Unfortunately, Tim didn’t mention that Apple’s accessibility API yielded additional technical advantages that have paid for themselves many times over. The Cocoa scripting API is built on the work that Apple did for accessibility.
-jcr