If for some reason you were fretting about Apple CEO Tim Cook’s salary, don’t worry, he’s doing just fine.
Cook enjoyed a 47 percent jump in compensation in 2017, pulling in $12.8 million for the year, including a $9.3 million cash bonus. It’s a healthy jump from the $8.5 million he banked in 2016 when Apple’s revenue dipped slightly. But the company bounced back in 2017, spurred on by impressive Watch sales and the release of two new iPhones; its stock performance mirrored Cook’s compensation increase, running 47 percent since Jan. 1.
Cook’s pay disparity stood out even more in Apple’s proxy, released on Wednesday, showing that he made less than any other named Apple exec. But don’t cry for Cook just yet.
In August, Cook received more than $89 million worth of vested stock, thanks to meeting company performance goals. He sold about $43 million worth of shares at the time. Cook inked a deal giving him 7 million shares of Apple stock over the next decade when he took over in 2011, which was valued at $378 million at the time. He modified the arrangement in 2013, pegging the stock vesting to Apple’s performance.
6 Tech Giants Shaking Up News, From Jeff Bezos to Laurene Powell Jobs (Photos)
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.
Jeff Bezos – Washington Post
The Amazon founder purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million in cash. President Trump has called the paper the “Amazon Washington Post.”
The Facebook co-founder purchased The New Republic in 2012, becoming executive chairman and publisher. However, he sold the venerable political magazine to Win McCormack in 2016, saying he "underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate."
The eBay founder is a well-known philanthropist who created First Look Media, a journalism venture behind The Intercept. Inspired by Edward Snowden's leaks. Omidyar teamed up with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras to launch the website “dedicated to the kind of reporting those disclosures required: fearless, adversarial journalism.”
The PayPal co-founder doesn’t own a news organization, but he makes this list because he essentially ended one -- Gawker -- proving once again the power of an angry billionaire. Thiel secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit against Gawker Media because he was upset that the website once outed him as gay. Hogan won the defamation lawsuit against the site that sent its parent company into bankruptcy, and Gawker.com is no longer operating.
OK, so Facebook isn’t technically a news organization… yet. However, the company is preparing to launch its much-anticipated lineup of original content later this summer, and there are also signs that it's on the verge of becoming an even bigger media platform.
Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships at Facebook, confirmed last week it’s developing a subscription service for publishers willing to post articles directly to Facebook Instant Articles, rather than their native websites.
Tech is increasingly intertwined with news, for better or worse
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.
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