“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
SJ built up a $150bn war chest to free Apple from ever worrying about was other anal-ists or stockholders believe.
If you produce great products the share price takes care of itself. And Apple could produce a decades’ worth of crap without giving a rats-ass. Just look at Microsoft !
SJ presumeably left his stock to his wife and therefore I think Cook is safe to discount all the useless mutterings from “off stage” for as long as he likes.
SJ did not build up a $150Bn war chest! It was made by TC! Get your facts right! He was the COO and the right arm of SJ.
I wish that website would finally find their Alpha and get the hell off the net.
Stock holders are becoming less the investors and more the dictators. If you don’t like what the company is doing then sell your shares and buy into one that does.. Here is another clue.. if your an investor.. how about researching the corporate culture of the company your are about to invest billions in and see if it lines up with your own!! If not .. then find one that does.. but now days its all about being a greedy bastard and killing the golden gooses.. I asks them.. WHY DID YOU BUY APPLE IF YOU DONT AGREE WITH THEIR PHILOSOPHIES AND CULTURE?? Probably only for the money… not for the products or the social responsibility that has always been a part of Apple.
I am a stockholder; and I do not say no! There are intelligent life forms beyond the bottom line.
Whatever. Apple is up about $100 on its year ago price. Short term fluctuations only matter to day traders and journalists.
STFU! Tim Cook is the absolutely best CEO ever! He is totally right when HE says that certain aholes should stay away from the company. Never mind then again because we will hunt/vote them down.
Completely wrong. If a stock does not perform according to your desired model, then you sell it and move on to something that does,
http://www.conservativeblog.org/amyridenour/2014/3/5/so-what-were-we-doing-at-apple-and-why-did-tim-cook-get-so-m.html
Read the article first before firing off emotional comments.
It’s nice to hear from “the other side of the story” – especially when the discussion was not really about “Global Warming/Climate Change”(tm), but not letting Apple Corporation Management unwittingly become a political pawn in the battle for control of our minds.
Way back when, Apple employees were into free love, orgies, drugs and rock and roll and sold initially (and quite successfully) by communes to small groups and it hurt them in the conservative corporate world (and was discussed quietly as to why many companies did not “buy Apple” back in the day) {IBM was portrayed as the white-shirt-and-tie, morally clean conservative-faced company that could be trusted – and Apple, by its “loose morals”, was not to be trusted). Now Apple Corporation is trying to paint itself as “Thinking Different” without really being “different” and more main-stream. Will that strategy work?
I’d like to see Apple Corporation stay focused on improving products and not let the personal preferences of management get in the way.
Tim Cook’s current lifestyle just means there will possibly be no future “Tim Cooks” as progenitors. That is his decision alone and should not be reflected in how Apple Corporation operates as a business. The company changed its rainbow logo in an attempt to hide its so-called “preferential” background and make it appear more conservative and business-like. I’d like Apple Corporation to continue to present THAT kind of face – and not sodomize itself in public.