[herendin]

I wish we could all be mature enough that such pointless symbolic gestures were not necessary. This causes no hardship for Tim and makes no non-negligible impact on Apple's financials or employee wellbeing

[galoisscobi]

Isn’t it fun to move goalposts! On layoff threads, people comment that the CEOs “taking full responsibility” should cut exec pay. Now we have a company that hasn’t had any layoffs and the CEO is taking a paycut and it’s a pointless symbolic gesture.

[saghm]

The goalpost comment really isn't necessary; there are a lot of people on this site, and it's inevitable that conflicting opinions will get expressed. I think there's an interesting point to be made about how widely differing expectations can make it difficult for public figures to avoid criticism from one group or another, but it's muddled by the dubious assumption that people commenting on articles are some monolithic unit rather than a varying set of individuals from one article to the next, each of whom have potentially unique perspectives and aren't necessarily the same people who commented on a different thread.

[herendin]

I moved my goalposts?

[fsckboy]

if it's different people making the comments, then they don't need to be consistent.

and if the same, then if their outlook has class struggle leanings, they're being entirely consistent, capitalist class bad.

[quitit]

This isn't a PR exercise. Context is needed as below:

1. Shareholders have a "say-on-pay" vote, this is non-binding, but gives the board an idea of shareholder attitudes.

2. Institutional Shareholder Services raised concerns with their clients about Tim Cook's pay and requested that they vote against Tim's proposed package.

3. The approval vote dropped to 64% (usually around 95%).

4. Members of the compensation team engaged shareholders for an idea about where to set compensation. Tim then requested that.

[herendin]

>This isn't a PR exercise. Context is needed

Thank you for explaining the context so well. But I disagree with your first claim. I'm saying it is totally a PR exercise.

[throwaway5959]

I’m curious what your reaction would be if he got a 40% pay increase.

Frankly it’s refreshing to see a CEO cut his own pay vs continuously increasing it regardless of how well the company performs.

[juve1996]

What does "refreshing" even mean?

What would be refreshing is an adequate social safety net. Not mega rich getting slightly less megarich.

[herendin]

>I’m curious what your reaction would be if he got a 40% pay increase.

It would be equally performative. This is morality theater. I'd only question his judgment about public relations.

I do understand the reasoning for this adjustment of his salary. I'm simply saying I wish it was not necessary. It's sad.

[Kukumber]

Clearly you don't understand..

It affects the morale of your employees, knowing even your execs bear the price of struggle helps with mental health

It's documented and Nintendo applied it countless times during its history, look at the result today

https://www.polygon.com/2013/7/5/4496512/why-nintendos-sator...

I laugh at these companies laying off random people instead of cleaning up execs/managers, they treat their workforce like livestock, no wonder they are showing poor results lately

[blululu]

Consider the growing list of CEO who have "taken full responsibility" for layoffs without taking on any of the downside. Even on a symbolic level this is the right thing to do, but practically speaking it signals some sense of skin in the game which is sadly lacking from CEO's who let go of staff without acknowledging that it was a failure of their management in any material terms.

[juve1996]

CEOs are too rich to ever have skin in the game. It's a meaningless exercise.

Tim Cook will never feel the pain of a layoff like someone at the genius bar.

[jklinger410]

It's insulting to say that someone giving up a potential income amount that I will never achieve cumulatively in my entire lifetime is symbolic and pointless.

[bsaul]

symbolic gestures constitute a large part of the fabric of society. Saying "thank you" to someone doesn't provide any value, yet you do it, and people appreciate it.

[herendin]

>symbolic gestures constitute a large part of the fabric of society.

In fact, we all know that saying Thank you may provide real value to both sides, because we mean it

But meaningless gestures, such as a billionaire at a wealthy and healthy company taking a paycut, harm and devalue our social fabric

[layer8]

This just demonstrates that shareholders do have a say, which presumably is how it should be.

[motoxpro]

By that logic he should have just kept is salary what it was. His salary now is about .05% of the companies revenue. That would be like the CEO of Mailchimp making 350k