Edit | Yu Bin
Produced by | Chaoqi Network "Yu see column"
Recently, Apple's shareholder power of attorney file submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission announced the total compensation of Apple CEO Cook in 2021, which once triggered a hot discussion on the Internet.
According to the documents, Cook's total compensation in 2021 is "as high" as $98.7 million, equivalent to about 630 million yuan. As soon as this number came out, all kinds of self-media have played exaggerated labels such as "the highest on the surface" and "the first annual salary in history", and want to use Cook's high salary "big news" to occupy the first traffic peak in 2022.
But behind this seemingly "sky-high" annual salary, many people are lamenting that Cook's annual salary is actually not high, compared to the achievements led by Cook to Apple, it can even be said that Apple "lost" Cook.
Why?
Judging from Cook's specific salary composition in 2021, his base salary in 2021 is only $3 million, and the majority of the salary package is "equity-based reward" and "non-equity incentive compensation", which are $82.35 million, $12 million, and $1.39 million in other compensation.
It can be seen that the $82.35 million stock reward, which accounts for the vast majority of the salary package, is a restricted stock and needs to be gradually cashed out under certain conditions in the future. So strictly speaking, Cook's annual salary in 2021 is not as high as it seems.
For comparison, because Cook did not get stock incentives in previous years, his salary in 2020 and 2019 was much less than in 2021, only $14.77 million and $11.56 million, respectively, which shows that if there is no restrictive stock reward, Cook's annual salary standard can only be called average among the CEOs of global technology giants.
This seems to be the reward that Cook deserves, the past 2021 is Cook's 10th year as Apple's CEO, during which time Cook led Apple through the confusion of the "post-Jobs era" and towards greater commercial success. In Cook's hands, Apple can be called one of the most successful commercial companies in human history today.
What has Apple achieved under Cook? From the perspective of core business indicators, as of the end of September 2021, Apple's total revenue reached $365.8 billion and operating profit was $108.9 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 33% and 64%, respectively.
Companies as large as Apple can achieve such a large growth, so it is reasonable that Apple has chosen to reward Cook in 2021.
In addition, from apple's market value of only more than $300 billion when he first became Apple's CEO, to Apple's recent record for the world's highest market capitalization company, reaching a market value of $3 trillion, Apple's success in the business field is obviously inseparable from the leadership of Cook, the CEO.
In August 2018, Apple's market capitalization exceeded $1 trillion for the first time; in August 2020, Apple's market capitalization exceeded $2 trillion; and recently, Apple's market capitalization reached $3 trillion. For Apple in recent years, it is more and more courageous, and it is naturally a foregone conclusion that the company's CEO will receive huge rewards.
It is precisely because of such an achievement that some people feel that it is more appropriate to exchange Cook's 2021 annual salary of up to $98.7 million for "only" $98.7 million, because compared to the value of many other company CEOs or business organizations, the money given to Cook can be called a great value for money.
In contrast, when there was no stock incentive before 2021, Cook's annual salary was not enough among the CEOs of multinational companies, and even with this year's annual salary of more than $90 million as a reference, the CEO of the most successful commercial company in history was still inferior to many other company executives in terms of annual salary.
For example, in 2020, Alphabet's CEO "Chopping Chai Brother" annual salary of up to $280 million, when netizens have been distressed that Cook's annual salary is only $14 million, even if you add 1 million Apple stock "year-end bonus" in 2020, Cook's total salary package is not as good as "Chopping Chai Brother", this year it seems that netizens still seem to continue to "hurt" Cook.
As a netizen commented, Cook was CEO for ten years, Apple's stock price reached three trillion US dollars, Apple's sales in 2021 were more than 360 billion, the company's stable development, the stock price doubled tenfold to become the first in human business history, a year's sales exceeded the company's market value ten years ago, the cash flow was healthy, and the product continued to lead... Such a CEO only gets less than $100 million a year?
What is more interesting is that considering that some CEOs in China are not low in salary, and some tax fines that have occurred recently are similar to Cook's annual salary, many people have opened the "yin and yang" model.
"Too few, Qu Cai, Cook to live stream with goods to pay taxes are more than this number", "not even a Wei Ya, do not want to think about who Cook is", "too few, Qu Cai, Cook to live stream with goods to pay taxes are more than this number.". You can simply feel the "sour words" of netizens.
In the past 2021, the global economy has suffered from economic slowdowns and the impact of the "black swan" of the epidemic, in this context, we are paying attention to Cook's high salary, in fact, we are also concerned about why he can lead Apple to continue to succeed.
For Chinese enterprises, this is undoubtedly an object to learn, whether it is from the company's products, culture, business model, or from the service, management, etc., the achievements of Apple and Cook are not achieved overnight, in this process is bound to have a lot of things worth learning and learning.
It should be pointed out that over the years, there have been some high-paid CEOs or executives in China who have appeared on various salary rankings, but in contrast, many of them often suffer from huge doubts, and netizens complain that the company's development is not good, and the salary is not much at all.
It is hoped that in the future, China will also have the highest annual salary CEO in history, and behind this high salary, there will be products and services and business performance that can withstand scrutiny. Perhaps then, Chinese business and Chinese scientific and technological forces can truly lead the global wave.