Tim Cook: If You Don't Like Our Energy Policies, Don't Buy Apple Stock 348
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Nick Statt reports at Cnet that at Apple's annual shareholder meeting Friday, Apple CEO Tim Cook shot down the suggestion from a conservative, Washington, DC-based think tank that Apple give up on environmental initiatives that don't contribute to the company's bottom line. The National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), hasn't taken kindly to Apple's increasing reliance on green energy and said so in a statement issued to Apple ahead of the meeting. 'We object to increased government control over company products and operations, and likewise mandatory environmental standards,' said NCPPR General Counsel Justin Danhof demanding that the pledge be voted on at the meeting. 'This is something [Apple] should be actively fighting, not preparing surrender.' Cook responded that there are many things Apple does because they are right and just, and that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues. 'When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind. I don't consider the bloody ROI,' said Cook. 'We do a lot of things for reasons besides profit motive, We want to leave the world better than we found it.' Danhof's proposal was voted down and to any who found the company's environmental dedication either ideologically or economically distasteful, Cook advised 'if you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.'"
Cook is right (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely energy policies are about creating a feel-good aspect to the brand. Plus if you learn something along the way by trying perhaps you can commercialize it and it takes you off on another wild ride, like the iPhone did.
Just because they don't understand it, doesn't mean they can run the company better.
Even if he's wrong, 97% shareholders agreed (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if his policies are bad, 97.5% of stockholders voted to do it his way. The owners want to be green, so green it is.
Re:Even if he's wrong, 97% shareholders agreed (Score:5, Insightful)
Au contraire. It is NOT generally agreed that the purpose of a company is to make money. A company is a joint (corporate) venture whose purpose is whatever the organizing articles say it is.
You know, you sound like the jerks who bought into IOMEGA back when the standard hard drives were 20meg and IOMG was working on a 100-meg floppy, and said "stop the R&D, give dividends", when the vast majority voted for R&D.
They then SUED the company for several years, eating up its budget in legal defense, until they stopped the R&D, crashing the stock price from 16 to 2 for a dozen years--there's your malarky about minority protections-- and didn't come out with the zip disk until ten years later.
Yes, there are minority protections. Cook was very clear and specific about what they were. Clearly the conservatives so named were COMMUNIST conservatives, trying to use overweaning government to eliminate others' freedom.
Oh, the irony.
Fiduciary duty to stockholders. (Score:5, Interesting)
Directors and officers of a corporation have a fiduciary duty to the stockholders to run the company in their interest.
This USUALLY means trying to maximize return on investment. But the sotckholders may want other things, in addition to or in place of, financial gain. When this is the case, the duty requires them to set their own target appropriately.
This is not uncommon: Think "green energy company" or "church" for two examples. The Bell Telephone company, started by Alexander G. out of his research into hearing aids, has always done work on assisting the hearing impaired. Hershey's, at the direction of its founder, is owned by a trust and 30% of its profits go to support a school for orphans.
One typical strategy is to "satisfice", rather than maximize, financial gain, while pursuing other interests. This produces a sound financial base for pursuing those interests. (i.e. Hershey's, churches, "green companies"...) Another is to do things that are win-win with respect to the business (i.e. Bell Telephone, doing things like designing phones to work well with hearing aids, make ringing sounds that are auddible to the partially deaf and light-flashing ringer devices, and otherwise making the phone system accessable to hearing impaired.)
As you point out, these approaches may also lead to financial benefits that typical businesses and business-school graduate executives miss in their pursuit of the short-term bottom line. Good will, new inventions, synergies, etc.
Another example: Hershey's, not constrained or incentivized by short-term bottom-line, doesn't use typical industrial-food ingredients such as corn syrup, or follow other food-processing fads. It sticks with basic, high quality, time-proven, ingredients and recipies. This produces a consistent product (which also forms the base for consumer recipies) and a loyal customer base. (No "New Coke" debacle or gradual deterioration of product quality over decades with this company.)
Love how the AC trolls are out in force (Score:5, Insightful)
So far there aren't many comments here, but all of them are sitting here flaming Tim Cook. No where in the articles linked did it say that shareholders (as a group) wanted this. In fact, if you RTA (the last linked one), you'll see that it received less than 3% of the vote. But people who are too afraid to post under a user name are also apparently all too happy to post that Cook is doing a disservice to his shareholders, even though the overwhelming majority of said shareholders agree with him.
So what should those that don't do? Buy something else. I don't get why people who are seemingly for the free market are up in arms about a company doing something their way and telling people that if they don't like it, they can go somewhere else. Just because the ROI in one company might not be as high as possible (according to a think tank, not a court of public opinion by any stretch, which is where Apple exceeds), doesn't mean that the company is doing a disservice to its shareholders, unless those shareholders are in it for the shortest term possible.
Re:Love how the AC trolls are out in force (Score:5, Insightful)
Cook appears to have learned at least a bit of the lessons of those eras. He doesn't have to do what the alleged professionals in the business community claim to be best practices; Apple has made a lot more money over the last fifteen or so years by bucking the trend and continually changing. Don't get me wrong, my ownership of Apple products is limited to a few castoff keyboards and I'm certainly no fanboi, but they've managed to build a successful, profitable company by doing what their customers, not necessarily the business community, wants.
It's kind of like how Costco is doing well, by paying employees actual living wages so those employees work at the stores until retirement as opposed to being bled dry by corporate interest. Costco still makes money, Costco is popular among customers, employees are happy, owners are happy, and things will continue to be long-term stable for them.
If Cook manages to keep Apple going strong in the wake of Jobs' demise then this will be interesting to watch.
Re:Love how the AC trolls are out in force (Score:4, Insightful)
That's what is so funny. Ever since Jobs came back, every quarter, so-called "analysts" keep announcing that Apple must stop doing what they are doing and do what the competition is.
-make netbooks
-make cheap computers
-make cheap phones
-make cheap tablets [extra ridiculous when the rumors before it was announced were that it would be around $1000 for the cheapest, and the analysts said it would be dead unless it was in the $500 range, then when it was released for $500, they said it was dead unless it was prices $300-$350]
-give in to carrier demands, so more carriers will sell the iPhone
-zillions more
They also announce products are a failure, like the iPhone 5C, which was only the 3rd best selling phone between when it was released and the beginning of Dec [which I could readily find numbers]. So only 1 model [out of hundreds] from a competitor sold better than the 5c in the US and it's a failure.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Love how the AC trolls are out in force (Score:4, Insightful)
I prefer the lack of diplomacy, personally. It stands in stark contrast to most of the public statements Tim Cook makes about the company, which are usually run through the PR/Marketing polisher within an inch of their lives.
Of course, the skeptical part of me wonders if this response was planned, to some extent. Not necessarily word-for-word, but the result of some foresight: "What's a good response if somebody says this isn't helping our profitability?" The line about ROI for accessibility struck me as a bit too pat.
Re:Love how the AC trolls are out in force (Score:4, Insightful)
Sweet reason, or even simple politeness, doesn't work with the kind of self-righteous ideological nutballs who make up NCPPR. "Fuck off" is the only kind of response that will get through to them.
Re: NCPPR (Score:4, Interesting)
I will likely never buy an Apple product, I would like to shake Cook's hand for the way he pushed back against the NCPPR. It's about time these "Profits Uber Alles!" twits got their behinds handed to them.
Of course, who wants to bet on how long it is before the NCPPR begins pushing for a shareholder proposal to have Cook removed as CEO? "How dare he waste money that we could be squirreling away in our offshore accounts on that dirty, hippie stuff like Green Initiatives?"
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The National Center for Public Policy Research are right-wing activist assholes, who's opinions have previously been rejected by the overwhelming majority of Apple shareholders. They are trying to use an Apple shareholder meeting, not for the benefit of the company or it's shareholders, but to expound their political beliefs.
Why should Tim Cook treat them with a respect they don't deserve?
Re:Love how the AC trolls are out in force (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is the Think Tank guys have left the reservation. Conservatives used to believe that most people were basically good and when given choices they will do the right thing. They also used to believe it was wrong to force people to do things and because of that first belief it was also unnecessary to force people to do things. Let the market work, let people become more affluent, which leads to more choices and they will make good choices. They also at one point thought people rational.
Rational people understand money is not the only form of wealth. Its also good to have clean air to breath, safe water to drink, and quality food to eat. In that sense environmentalism is actually a conservative issue. These things are of course a matter of degree. Its much easier to decide to spend more on the same amount of energy because its at least ostensibly "greener" when you are having most of your other needs thoroughly satisfied. Affluence should make us better people; something I still believe. Which is why as a conservative or libertarian or whatever you want to call me I am thrilled to see companies like Apple doing this stuff of there own will.
It validates my beliefs. They are making choices freely that can benefit not just their future but potentially the future of others. They are doing so against a back drop of wild success, in one of the least regulated industries (tech).
If you don't like Apple's energy policy (Score:2)
It would be maximizing ROI if... (Score:2, Informative)
In an economy where market failures such as negative externalities are corrected, Apple is already doing the sort of thing that any company would do to maximize ROI. The problem is that conservative organizations such as the NCPPR tend not to believe in externalities [blogspot.com], probably because it conflicts with their ideology that the Earth is not warming or that humans are not the cause of it.
It's ironic that the NCPPR bring up ROI when they bash [juneauempire.com] a $68.4 billion train project that would provide the same transportat
It's all about the money (Score:2, Insightful)
This is all about raising money for the think tank. They get to tell their supporters that they stood up to the hated Al Gore, who is on Apple's board. Watch the donations flow in over this.
Cook said it because Apple is rolling in cash (Score:2)
You best believe that if Apple was limping along financially then they wouldn't have splurged on such green energy ventures. Don't misunderstand me. Apple has the cash and they can spend it as they wish. But Cook is making a moral argument and it's only the success of the iPhone/iPad that allows him to do so.
Re: (Score:3)
Heaven forbid that companies should act morally.
Re: (Score:3)
You say that as if Foxconn wasn't the largest contract manufacturer in the world, manufacturing for all the top brands.
The vast majority of consumer hardware products from every brand are manufacturer under contract in Asia.
Apple has the highest standards in the business, and was the first to use the Fair Labor Association to do independant audits of their suppliers factories.
By that measure, as well as by their green standards, Apple is one of the most moral companies there is.
http://www.apple.com/uk/suppl [apple.com]
Exactly (Score:2)
this is a, if not the major problem that ROI = $'s ** x is the only measure how things are followed, the more the better, and not what would be adequate on a global scale. That's where currently all systems fail flat.
I am not really an Apple fan but this is a good one!
Obvious NCPPR Agenda is Obvious (Score:5, Informative)
Funny how the good folks at the NCPPR didn't demand that Apple stop their philanthropic activities, which by NCPPR logic would also hurt shareholder value. For some reason, they only objected to Apple's "green" initiatives...I wonder why?
Either way, those "think tank" guys should go back to school and learn how capital assets are actually priced. [wikipedia.org] If the NCPPR had gotten their way, it's likely that Apple's stock price would have gone down, not up.
Only in America ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Only in America ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The parent post has been labeled as funny... ...but it's actually quite sad.
Actually, Tim Cook WAS doing his job (Score:4, Interesting)
The CEO of a company - whether public or not - is expected to make certain decisions completely on his or her own.
Like the captain of a ship. Consider that all the captains of the US missile submarine fleet have the authority to nuke President Putin back to the stone ages should the sub ever lose communications with their commanders in the Pentagon.
Like the captain of a ship, the CEO of a company can be relieved of command, should - NOT the stockholders but THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS - feel he or she is doing a bad job.
Like say, when the Apple board tossed Steve Jobs out on his ear, put Woz out to pasture, scouted around for a more multinational kinda brand-oriented guy, brought in John Scully, who proceeded to lay off four thousand of my coworkers back when I was doing MacTCP QA for Apple, because he'd never actually used a computer in his entire life before hiring on at the Cupertino Fruit Company.
Rly. I still have my Apple Employee Loan-to-Own PowerMac 8500. That tradition got started specifically because of Scully not knowing how to use a computer. That was actually a common problem back in the day. Actually it still is; I know of some guy whose computer was running real slow, because he hide NINE Internet Explorer toolbars. But I digress.
Now suppose Timmy-baby really wasn't doing his job, but the board backed him. Then the job of the shareholders would be to elect a new board. That's one of the things they often do at these shareholder meetings. It would be up to a vote of the board to replace the CEO.
As for those who object to Apple's green policies. Consider how many citizens of the People's Republic of China work for Apple, or for one of Apple's suppliers such as FoxConn. I expect that - indirectly - far more people work for Apple in the PRC than do in the whole rest of the world put together.
The air in China used to be pretty clean because the people lived in a very simple manner, they didn't own many consumer products, they all dressed in olive drab and rode bicycles to work and school. Even Ambassador George Herbert Walker Bush rode his bike to the embassy in Peking!
While nominally still Communist, actually it is quite likely the closest to unfettered capitalism of anywhere on the planet. Without the slightest thought towards urban planning, there are factories everywhere, everyone who has a good job has a nice car, and a nice place to live. Thus they had that one hundred mile long traffic jam that lasted a week.
China gets most of its energy from coal. It is plentiful there. They import coal as well; there is a controversial proposal to build a coal terminal where I now live in Vancouver, Washington, so coal mined in Montana can be loaded onto cargo ships then transported to China.
This had the eventual result that I recently saw the most amazing photograph. I don't have a link but maybe I can dig it up then post it in a reply.
The smog is so thick in many Chinese cities that one cannot see the sky, certainly not the sunrise.
So along the busy streets, in the early mornings, they have installed very large video screens that show the rising Sun.
The photo I saw, the video on that screen was so beautiful, but the smog was so thick that the people couldn't see more than maybe thirty feet. That's why the life expectancy in Beijing has gone down by fifteen years.
I don't know that Tim Cook is worrying about his Chinese employees, or those of his Chinese vendors, but if he wants FoxConn to keep assembling iDevices, they can't all be dropping dead of emphysema can they? Grandpa Crawford died of that, he spent his last five years on a portable oxygen tank. It's a nasty way to go.
This is a short-term vs long-term investment thing (Score:5, Interesting)
You Don't Understand the Law (Score:2)
Re:Tim Cook doesn't understand the Law (Score:5, Insightful)
shareholders voted with Cook. Law says ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The stockholders voted with Cook, saying that they, the owners of Apple, want their company to be environmentally responsible AND to acquiesce to government mandating how they do so. That puts him on solid legal ground, I believe.
What would get Cook in trouble would be putting his OWN well-being ahead of stockholder interests. If Apple were paying TimCook Inc a billion dollars for green services, that would be a problem. Cook is carrying out the expressed wishes of the stockholders, and is not enriching himself at their expense.
Re:shareholders voted with Cook. Law says ... (Score:5, Insightful)
A nut job with an agenda and few stocks so he can into th meeting isn't his boss, he's just a troll
Putting him down probably did good for the stock
Re:shareholders voted with Cook. Law says ... (Score:5, Insightful)
oh you are correct, the stock holders voted no question. but the way he handeled it was wrong, you dont insult your bosses ,regardless if they are majority or not. All he did was contribute to the idea that apple is full of smug
Did you ever watch "The Blues Brothers"? The scene where they demonstrate what's the proper way to treat neo nazis? Tim Cook has done the same thing here. A right-wing group calling themselves a "Think Tank", trying to push their disgusting right-wing agenda in a company's share holder meeting, and they get told off.
Yes, Apple is truly evil for using solar panels instead of polluting the environment by burning coal in Northern Carolina.
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Re:shareholders voted with Cook. Law says ... (Score:5, Insightful)
so in other words, some owners have more say than others, depending on their view... got it.....
Actually based on the percentage of shares that they own, some owners have more say than others. This think tank probably had a nominal stake in the company.
Cook knew that he had a very large majority of the stock holders of backing him (97.5%), or he wouldn't have picked the fight. The CEO can decide to do things that don't look like they have short term gains from an ROI perspective, but can contribute to the long term success of the company. This is actually what good CEO's should do.
I personally would feel better about investing in a company that is looking at sustainability for the long term.
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"so in other words, some owners have more say than others, depending on their view... got it....."
One view is based on science and facts, the other is not. Right wingers are known to reject science and the laws of nature in general as a majority of their base believes in superstitious nonsense. The more sensible and intelligent corporate types know they can't survive on fairy tales and want evidence and science.
dollars are not the only ROI. Investors are humans (Score:4, Insightful)
"Investor" is a subset of "human", so investors want the things that humans want. To "think as an investor" means to think as a human being. Dollars are not the only thing human investors want, so the ROI isn't measured only in dollars.
I own the most of the stock in one company, which gives me control of the company. I don't work there, so I don't make the day-to-day decisions, but I could fire the people who make the day-to-day decisions, so they listen to me on the big stuff. I regularly make decisions as the primary investor which negative or neutral to profits. Some things are more important than money. I believe that money is a tool, a means to some end. Money is not an end itself. I, the greedy capitalist pig, make money so that I can use that money to be of service to people. If the company can be of great service to people and lose a little bit of money doing so, that's a great deal and we do it. The comparison, the alternative, is how much good we can do if we get the money as profit, give 30% to government, then spend the rest being of service.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:shareholders voted with Cook. Law says ... (Score:4, Informative)
You need to put down that ganja dude.
Each share gets one vote. 2.95% of the vote gets you nothing. Especially when you are just trying to raise your own profile by being an asshole at Apple's shareholder meeting.
hydro good, geothermal good, wind good, solar crap (Score:3)
I could point to a study citing dozens of solid sources, but the bottom line is this:
Geothermal is great where it's available (California).
Wind power is great, when the wind is blowing.
Hydro is great, where it's available, but requires a 100 mile reservoir.
Solar panels, which catch energy several l hours per day, are super expensive crap. As in it costs TEN TIMES as much as natural gas. A $1,500 / month home electric bill? No thanks.
Geothermal, wind, and hydro can each provide 2%-5% of our power needs. The
Re:shareholders voted with Cook. Law says ... (Score:5, Informative)
As a head of a company with possibly millions of bosses, I would think that not insulting any of them would be impossible. If you read more [nationalcenter.org] about the NCPPR it would appear that this boss has a specific political agenda and the truth is what they say it is. For example, what Tim Cook actually said:
"When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don't consider the bloody ROI. . . If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock."
What they claim: "Mr. Cook made it very clear to me that if I, or any other investor, was more concerned with return on investment than reducing carbon dioxide emissions, my investment is no longer welcome at Apple," said Justin Danhof, Esq.
Notice that nowhere do they publish his actual comments but their slant on it. Also if you read further:
Danhof went on to ask if Cook was willing to amend Apple's corporate documents to indicate that the company would not pursue environmental initiatives that have some sort of reasonable return on investment - similar to the concession the National Center recently received from General Electric. This question was greeted by boos and hisses from the Al gore contingency in the room.
But Business Insider reports it differently: "The second, in which the representative asked Cook to commit on the spot to only making moves that were profitable for the company, drew the most intense comeback we've heard from the executive."
So according to a reporter, the NCPPR wanted Apple, right then and there, to commit to do things that only show profit.
Of course, they are not done but insinuate hidden moves by Apple:
"Rather than opting for transparency, Apple opposed the National Center's resolution," noted Danhof.
I'm not sure what the company the NCPPR is following but a simple google search came up with Apple's very public environmental reports [apple.com].
Re:shareholders voted with Cook. Law says ... (Score:4, Insightful)
It IS about profit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Tim Cook is the CEO. His job is strategic planning: seeing where market trends are going, where technology is headed and the economy - including energy costs in the future - as best as humanly possible since nobody is clairvoyant.
The long term trend for the cost of fossil fuels is up. Even with all the "new" found oil and gas in the Continental US the price will go up. Why? Demand outstrips supply.
Asia. Those billions of people want to live like us Americans and we use 25% of the World's oil - for about 300 million people.
The oil companies are sucking it out of the ground as fast as they find it - well, including the time it takes to get a well producing, but you get my drift. In other words, the demand is increasingly MUCH faster than supply and unless some HUGE (another Saudi Arabia) economically viable reserve is found, oil and gas are going to go nowhere but up for the foreseeable future.
Green energy will continue to go down in price because many folks see the writing on the wall and frankly, some prefer clean air and water to profit.
Even the commie Chinese are investing heavily in green energy.
So, what does this mean for Apple? If they want to stay competitive in the future, they BETTER go green.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But.. what is green energy? Most of the things I've seen so far have been about as credible in terms of improving whatever "green" metric they claim to address as the products in the "nutrition supplements" aisle at the local drug store.
In a lot of places, the "green" solutions address only one real issue - satisfaction of some tax rule in order to allow the participant to enjoy a credit or to have tax-power-by-proxy. For instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... [wikipedia.org] Deepwater Wind has legislated ability to
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No, it's a subsidy created by the elected representatives to encourage companies like the one you listed, to encourage them to do just what they are doing. In the case of power, studies have shown quite conclusively that eliminating the pollution would turn into many billions of dollars of savings in medical treatment for the population at large. So 15 cents probably isn't unreasonable.
I'm sur
Re:Tim Cook doesn't understand the Law (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Are you familiar with the law? It doesn't define best interest. Not all shareholders a motivated purely by profit. Those that are motivated as such had an opportunity to vote him out of power (the law is on their side for that), but they couldn't garner enough interest.
Actually, ALL shareholders are motivated purely by profit. Think I'm wrong? Apple has enough surplus cash to indulge in such ventures. What if Apple posted a $10B loss? Think such money sinks would still be funded? Yes, willingly paying a premium for energy is a money sink.
If Apple was losing money, all of their shareholders would be concerned. Don't be fooled into thinking they wouldn't be.
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Actually, ALL shareholders are motivated purely by profit. Think I'm wrong?
I don't "think" you're wrong.
I know you're wrong.
Simple logic. As a shareholder who most definitely has more priorities than just profit, I invalidate your assertion by the mere fact of my existence.
I do like to profit, but I doubt your definition of "profit" involved anything but money anyway.
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correct. My home owners association is a legal corporation. But we make no moves to produce a profit. In fact, we actively work to reduce the member dues as much as possible to make sure we don't produce a profit or a loss.
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NCPPR's critique might be valid if Apple were adding solar arrays on its server farms to prematurely try operating off-grid, but that is not what's happening. Apple is using small source energy to supplement the grid, not replace it. Works just like your residential solar collectors.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
He is, and his "bosses" voted down the suggestion raised by NCPPR.
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Re:Tim, you don't own the company (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they voted it down, their energy policy is good marketing for their target audience. The bottom line is still the reason for the policy.
Sustainability is still a good thing to be going for... regardless of whether they're doing it for marketing reasons, or because they believe that 50 years from now there won't be any more coal fired power plants, doesn't really matter. Investing in renewable energy sources now is the smart thing to do regardless of whether you take an optimistic or pessimistic view of why they're doing it.
Re:Tim, you don't own the company (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree, with one caveat: As long as the company doesn't go broke pushing for it (or for any other ideological goal).
Mind you, Apple is certainly in no danger of that, so putting some of their dosh towards renewables is an excellent move for them, so yeah.
Re:Tim, you don't own the company (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they voted it down, their energy policy is good marketing for their target audience. The bottom line is still the reason for the policy.
Actually, as someone who tends towards the conservative side of things, I'm 100% happy to see that Cook said what he did. ROI is not the end-all, be-all of running a company, and worshipping it to the exclusion of all other considerations is a bad thing for any company to do. I also like the sustainability movement they're taking... it's not a "surrender" to "government intrusion" as the NCPPR is claiming. The government has no hand in how a company decides to get its electricity, and a sustainable solution does make good long-term sense.
Stereotypes aside, he "target audience" is not as homogeneous as you think. I strongly suspect that my ideological leanings clash very hard against those held by the "target audience" you're thinking of, but I mostly prefer Apple's products because they're quite solid, and in my experience last far longer than anything I've ever bought from its competitors. There are exceptions of course (I prefer having an Android phone so I can tinker with it), but overall the "target audience" doesn't buy an iPhone or MacBook Pro because the company is somehow approved by The Right People(tm). I posit that they buy the products either because of the reputation of solid products with excellent customer service, or they buy 'em because of some fashionable cachet.
Consider a parallel: Linux' old-school maintainers included everything from flaming ideologues for the 'progressive' side (Alan Cox IIRC was among this number), and flaming ideologues for the 'conservative' side (Eric Raymond stands out here, very strongly.) Yet everyone agreed on a few politically-neutral philosophies centered around Open Source, and a strong disdain for the slipshod-but-monopolistic coding practices of a certain dominant competitor.
Long story short, Apple made their business decisions not out of some stupid political ploy, but have laid out strong and logically sound philosophical reasons for doing what they do. Folks may not agree with them, but at least there they are, and they're not hidden behind some mealy-mouthed corporate-PR-speak.
And the Stockholders Don't Want the Policy Changed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And the Stockholders Don't Want the Policy Chan (Score:5, Insightful)
HEADLINE
Right Wing Ideologues looking for Publicity get their asses handed to them.
The NCPPR were only trying to raise their own profile by attacking Apple's policy, nothing more.
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Re:And the Stockholders Don't Want the Policy Chan (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And the Stockholders Don't Want the Policy Chan (Score:5, Insightful)
No, Tim Cook should be praised because he stood up to the right-wing idiots and told them where to stuff it, instead of treating them like an equal partner in a sensible debate.
The right-wing thinktanks have been flooding debates with PR puff pieces (also known as 'lies') instead of facts, and it is high time they got called on it.
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he basically tells owners of the company that they should sell their stock (or not buy it in the first place) if they want the course of the company changed
Where did you read that? I didn't notice him saying any such thing.
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He said anything about changing the course of the company. I heard: The course of the company isn't changing, if you don't like where it's going, get off now. Which so long as a majority of the stockholders will back his play is a completely legitimate statement. You don't get to come in with some tiny sliver of stock and dictate terms - either buy 51%, or better yet buy stock in companies whose policies you approve of in the first place.
Re:And the Stockholders Don't Want the Policy Chan (Score:5, Informative)
Stock holders don't own the company. If they owned the company, they would be liable for any debt if the company goes bankrupt.
Stockholders do indeed own the company. Laws limit the liability of stockholders' in a publicly held corporation to encourage that type of investment. Capitalism runs on investment.
Re:And the Stockholders Don't Want the Policy Chan (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is wrong. The executives and board need to be legally liable. shareholders need to be financially liable based on the percentage of stock held.
Corperations run out of control because they have been given a legal license to break the law whenever they want without recourse.
Unlimited personal liability? Insanity (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is wrong. The executives and board need to be legally liable.
Then you will not have a corporation. The ENTIRE point of a corporation is to separate personal liability from ownership. No one in their right mind would agree to accept unlimited personal liability for the actions of an entire company, most of which they do not control. Make the executives and board liable for all actions and corporations will cease to exist which is a Very Bad Thing.
shareholders need to be financially liable based on the percentage of stock held.
They are financially at risk. If the company goes belly up, the shareholders are last in line to get paid. They carry the most risk. Bondholders are typically first in line to get paid from any bankruptcy or liquidation.
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Re:Unlimited personal liability? Insanity (Score:5, Insightful)
Then they aren't held accountable for what they told the company to do.
Should citizen voters be liable for prison time if they elect a senator who turns out to be corrupt?
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Funny.
But... soylent green was not people, nor was it any more than a minor technical ornament to the story (Make Room, Make Room, by Harry Harrison.) Soylent was actually made of krill or algae or some such. Hollywood is really good at screwing up otherwise fine stories.
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I don't quite go as far as you, but I have definitely come around to view limited liability as too generous. While I think that passive investors should still enjoy limited liability, I think that active participants in the business should not. In other words, you should not be on the hook for, say, the BP oil spill just because your pension fund or 401(k) holds it or a mutual fund which owns it. But if you are on the board, in the management, or a majority owner then you should definitely be on the hook fo
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An investor is not an owner. The money he paid for the stock did not go to Apple, it went to some other market player. In a very real sense, a corporation has no owners. Not in the sense that you own your car (assuming you've finished paying for it).
Corporate policies are made by the Board of Directors and the corporate officers. The Board directs the officers. The Board can be directed by the stockholders. Which happened in this case, with the stockholders telling the Board that ROI was less important tha
Re:And the Stockholders Don't Want the Policy Chan (Score:4, Interesting)
Agree with "This has been the first thing Apple has done . . . I might want to own one of their products."
I've never liked Apple very much, but never disliked them very much either. They do some things that I like, they do other things that I dislike, and mostly I don't give a damn about them because their bling is over priced.
But - this really is a huge reason to like them. "If you don't like our policies, don't invest". Blunt and to the point.
I don't even care as much as some people about "green". Green is probably good, but hey, I just can't bring myself to care a whole lot. But, if Apple thinks green is important enough to invest in, so be it. If you don't agree, don't invest. Then, we're all cool!
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"utterly indifferent (about everything)"
Indifferent about everything? WTF? We were only discussing a single company here. Apple is everything? Apple and it's shareholders are everything? Get a grip dude - Apple is one company among many. At present, that company is pretty successful, but it's not very special as companies go. I don't dislike Apple a whole lot, I don't dislike them a whole lot. But, on many other subjects, I'm a very opinionated person. Care to change the subject to Microsoft? Goog
Re:And the Stockholders Don't Want the Policy Chan (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider buying a car. If you bought a used car, you did not pay the manufacturer. Using your logic, you would not own the car.
Just because someone who buys a share of Apple stock did not buy it directly from Apple does not mean that Apple did not originally benefit from the first sale (or grant) of the stock. It did. In the case of an IPO, a company is selling stock. The company receives money in exchange for that stock. The stock is now an asset that can be re-sold. In the case of employee stock, the company is paying the employee with stock in lieu of paying cash, so the company is trading its stock for the work of the employee -- the company received a benefit in exchange for stock which is now an an asset that can be re-sold
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The money he paid for the stock did not go to Apple, it went to some other market player.
If I buy a used car, the money paid does not go to Ford, it goes to the previous owner.
In a very real sense, a corporation has no owners.
By your logic, neither does a car.
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Common stock = ownership (Score:4, Informative)
Stock holders don't own the company.
They most assuredly do own the company. That is precisely how stock works. The ENTIRE point of corporate stock is to divorce the liability of the company from the ownership. It allows companies to take risks that would otherwise be impossible. (And before you jump in with some snarky response, yes that separation of liability from ownership is a Good Thing - companies would not exist without it) Common stock holders however are last in line to get paid if the company goes belly up. Debt holders typically are first in line.
If they owned the company, they would be liable for any debt if the company goes bankrupt.
Wrong. The company is a separate entity. Except for very small companies there is NEVER a personal guarantee of any debt. The debt is either unsecured or is secured by the assets of the company including all cash flows and receivables, tangible and intangible assets. In the event of a liquidation or bankruptcy, the common stockholders are last in line to recover any money from those assets so they carry the most risk.
Re:Common stock = ownership (Score:4, Informative)
Gaaaaa! No! You did so well up to that point. The size of the company has nothing to do with it.
It has EVERYTHING to do with it when it comes to debt. Doesn't matter if it is an LLC or a C-Corp. If you are small you'll be asked for a personal guarantee of any debt. If you are large you won't. The form of incorporation has nothing whatsoever to do with this. The bank doesn't care. They only care about the level of risk and the assets backing their loan.
sole proprietorship, LLC/LLP and S corporations have individual liability to owners/shareholders. C-corps have boards and share holders with no individual liability.
You are incorrect. ANY S or C corporation or LLC/LLP will have a corporate veil. That is the entire point of them. Don't take my word for it, go check. The difference between those forms of company has to do primarily with how taxes are handled but the corporate veil is still there. You can have an S-Corp with just one owner and they will NOT have unlimited personal liability. Sole proprietorships and simple partnerships (not LLPs) do have personal liability but they are not technically corporations. I'm an accountant and I've started 5 companies. I know this stuff more than passingly well.
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Before the creation of the limited liability company, stockholders were liable for the debts of companies that they owned. Stockholders are not liable because there are laws that limit their liability (if the company is set up correctly), not because they don't own the company.
Re:Tim, you don't own the company (Score:5, Insightful)
If you had read TFS, you might have perceived that the shareholders voted in support of Tim's position.
What's with the FoxNews shills nowadays? Has slashdot been flagged by the NSA for enhanced interference?
Stockholders are not his boss (Score:2)
The stockholders own the company. If the stockholders want the energy policy changed, then you do as your bosses say.
Wrong. The stockholders have no power to fire him. He reports to the board of directors. The stockholders can only vote to change the board. In some cases, don't know about apple, they might be able to raise motions at meetings for the board to take up. But even there was a motion to fire him, it would be up to the directors to execute it. So this policy is presumably backed by the board.
Cook was giving good advice too. The stock holder coould have tried to change the board or passed a motion but tha
50%+1 (Score:3)
The stockholders have no power to fire him. He reports to the board of directors.
The stockholders DO have the power to fire him, although their actual ability to do so is rather limited. If 50%+1 of the shareholders agree on anything they can (generally) force the company to do anything that is legal. This is deeply unlikely to happen but it is possible. If 50%+1 or more shareholders get together, they can do almost whatever they want whether or not the board agrees with it.
Re:so let me get this straight (Score:5, Insightful)
One more reason that I wont ever buy another apple product
Tim Cook telling these right-wing psychopaths to piss off is surely a reason to avoid buying Apple products.
What kind of bullshit is this? Extremist climate change deniers turning up in the Apple shareholder meeting, and trying to foist their idiotic "profit above anything" agenda on Apple, getting the response they deserve (actually, not _quite_ what they deserve, corporal punishment is what they deserve), and that makes you want to avoid Apple products?
Re: so let me get this straight (Score:2)
Cook did care and the result was that basically all of the Apple does care. They just don't give a flying fuck about unscientific drivel, that's all. They care about what they do and how they do it. It's in the best interest to follow the green policies. The brand value just inched a bit higher.
Re:so let me get this straight (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the owner went way too far. Being an owner does not entitle you to behave like a pig.
He told AN owner to *bleep!* off (Score:3)
Tim Cook told a single owner to go *bleep!* himself. The shareholders as a whole voted specifically on this resolution, and rejected it.
Re:so let me get this straight (Score:5, Insightful)
not only does apple control everything about the phones we buy, but they think they can tell the owners to fuck off? One more reason that I wont ever buy another apple product
The owners agreed with Cook - the right wing loonie didn't get support from the rest of the shareholders [gizmodo.com]. Which makes sense, as Apple needs not only to have the current premium products associated with its brand, but align with its potential customers - and above all, avoid really bad associations [youtube.com]. Or just being boring [dailymotion.com].
Image is very important for premium brands [wikibranding.net] - and that's what the majority of the shareholders wants Tim Cook to continue to cultivate, alongside its innovation focus.
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Re:so let me get this straight (Score:5, Insightful)
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And the truth is the boys at the Washington Think Tank ought to be thrilled. This is a free enterprise owned by free and private people who voted on how to run the enterprise they own. They made a decision to "go green" without some regulator forcing them to do so. Its a shining example about how FREEDOM AND CAPITALISM can work. Its evidence that with success and affluence people and even legal fictions like corporations "do the right thing".
Apples energy police IS a case against regulation.
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Your sig references my favorite song of all time, love to play it with my guitar and my hardly capable voice.
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97.05% of the owners told their co-owner to fuck off, and Tim Cook (as their dutiful employee) agreed.
He was a bit of a dick about it, but when 97.05% of your bosses tell you to tell the other 2.95% to fuck off you ain't supposed to sugar-coat it.
Tim Cook Also Owns Apple (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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The perception of Apple customers has been that they're typically left of center. Apple haters fired the "your iphone is made in a sweatshop" volley (legitimately, I might add) because of this perception of Apple's customers and an attempt at shaming them. Apple responded by enforcing ever stricter standards of minimum working conditions on all their suppliers, thus safeguarding the customer base. Continuing along the same lines and in service of safeguarding their customer base, Apple started mo
Re:Or... (Score:5, Informative)
Buying stocks or even the products of a company that supports Greenies is not a responsible act.
And buying the stocks of a company that ignores the law is somehow more responsible? Basically they were asking Tim Cook to ignore the federal mandates on green energy.
Even apart from that moronic idea, locally the number of datacenters we can actually place here in the country is now limited by the capacity of the grid. Doing small scale experiments on how to diminish that reliance, or even go off-grid on a large scale, is very likely to be a smart move. And that is not even taking into account the fact that in the country next door they are actually paying companies to use energy on days they have too much free energy (wind and solar). It makes the energy-intensive companies so competitive that a big one in this country has just gone bankrupt. Making sure that Apple retains an ability to mix and match between different energy providers is just sensible business, however you look at it.
Re:You got it buddy! (Score:5, Interesting)
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But I'm curious, what weapons? Those on the USS Yorktown?
Re:You got it buddy! (Score:4, Informative)
Wow. A bit of an oxymoron situation there. You're happy to increase the killing efficiency of the war machine - which only becomes more efficient at killing people in general, not just the enemy while creating further unrest in the world and more killing, but you find a computer immoral? Have you ever even used a Mac? It's a full blown BSD system, it even comes with X windows, and is a great platform for running Open Source software even if most but not all of the OS is closed source. It is a great companion for a Linux and FreeBSD junking like myself. But if you are an average computer user, you never have to see that and can use it as an average computer and everything in between. That is power and flexibility. So, dumbing down compared to what and on what grounds? Windows? Chrome? Whatever it is, it dumbed you down a long time ago. While I am an Android user, if you want to direct this at iOS, I could circle back around and start all over - but I don't think your ignorance is worth any more of my time than it has already received.
"My iMac is running slow today," said Mom (Score:3)
"No Mom, your computer isn't slow. It's a G4 iMac. You have 1.2 GB of memory. You are never going to run out of gigabytes." (That's how my mother refers to her disk drive.
"The people who write most software these days, they have really, really fast machines, with lots of memory and tons of gigabytes. They don't take care to make their software run fast anymore. It's a real problem."
When I use Mom's mouse to resize an OpenOffice window, the corner of the window lags quite far - not noticably but severel
Pretty Phony... And There's This... (Score:3)
If they wanted to do something really good, they'd stop off shoring all the work going into making their devices (which they lock you into), and create jobs for people in the country that buys most of their goods, and who
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Remember this:
http://petewarden.github.io/iP [github.io]...
Better than you it seems. That stupid controversy was about nothing more than cache files on the iPhone. Backing up to your PC with iTunes made a copy of the cache along with all the other files. Nothing was uploaded to Apple.
The iPhone scans everything around adds the GPS data and uploads it to Apples server.
Yes, but anonymously. You are not identified.
It's all explained here.
http://www.apple.com/uk/pr/lib... [apple.com]
Re:Did anyone read the article? (Score:5, Informative)
The NCPPR wasn't trying to get Tim Cook riled up....they were trying to make millions of stockholders aware that Al Gore, whom both the left and right recognize as a nutjob, is the board member driving some weird decisions at Apple, and that Tim is backing him.
That's a lot of nutjob conspiracy accusations without any evidence there. Dell has green initiatives, and I can without a doubt say Al Gore has nothing to do with them.
Al doesn't know the first thing about computers. And he's on the board of directors at Apple.
Dina Dublon [microsoft.com] knows nothing about software yet she's on the board of Microsoft. I daresay, most of IBM's board [ibm.com] knows nothing about IT services. Having technical knowledge about a company's products isn't a requisite for most boards.
And he's working (and succeeding) at driving Apple board discussions away from how to make computing devices and into "how to fight climate change." He's shifting the company away from what they're good at into something new, and political.
Unless you are present and have firsthand knowledge of the Gore's interaction with Apple, you can't claim this.
"Hey! You guys hired Lisa, the former head of the EPA to be a decision maker at Apple. What sense does that make? What qualifications does she have to make decisions for a tech company?"
A simple Google search and Apple's announcement [forbes.com] shows you that she's in charge of Apple's environmental programs. I would think that her job at the Environmental Protection Agency would qualify her for such a position.