В Apple могут выплатить бывшему главе Тиму Куку больше, чем действующему CEO Джону Тернусу

Bloomberg’s Apple scoop machine, Mark Gurman, is not a very spicy writer, and that’s undoubtedly part of his secret recipe for prying news nuggets out of the world’s second largest company. In his latest column, however, he asks a rather pointed question about the ongoing CEO transition at Apple, which sees John Ternus taking over for ex-CEO Tim Cook: “What is the eventual off-ramp for Cook, and when will Apple fully become Ternus’ company?” For most people, the answer is Wednesday at approximately 10 a.m. Pacific Time. He is already CEO, but on Wednesday he will take the stage as CEO at a major Apple product-unveiling event, and is expected to trumpet the arrival of the long-awaited folding iPhone, a product whose development he reportedly oversaw personally. That should probably do the trick for most Apple fans. But Gurman writes for Apple Kremlinologists, not fans, so he’s raising a live issue for that group. Cook is now Executive Chairman, and isn’t about to go away. He’s still seen as very much needed because he makes Donald Trump happy. And moreover, according to Gurman, there’s a possible future where Cook’s pay package for the coming year could exceed Ternus’. Cook’s salary was $3 million as CEO, and will be $2 million as Executive Chairman, and Ternus’ salary will be the $3 million Cook was recently making. But of course we all know Big Tech CEOs’ salaries are pocket change compared to their stock awards. Their total pay packages when you include stock have projected values rather than just being straightforward dollar amounts. The target for Ternus’s pay is $58 million, compared to a measly $47 million for Cook. But the structures of the pay plans are different, and that’s how Cook could end up winning the pay game. As Gurman notes, 75% of the stock Ternus is expected to be granted is tied to how Apple’s stock performs in comparison to competitors. For Cook, only 50% is tied up in this way. That means in an unfortunate scenario for Apple’s stock—one in which neither pay package presumably hits its target—the total value of Cook’s pay package could end up higher than Ternus.’ Kremlinology-wise, this probably isn’t a situation like when Dmitry Medvedev was briefly President of Russia, but was widely seen as Vladimir Putin’s sidekick, a state of affairs that culminated in Putin’s return and consolidation of power. As Gurman writes, Ternus is taking over the CEO office that Cook is vacating, and Ternus has ambitious and very un-Cook-like plans to accelerate the development of new products. Even in the Ternus era, it’s been made abundantly clear that Cook’s purview of making Donald Trump happy is still a company priority. It’s worth keeping in mind over the next year that if Apple underperforms, there’s a scenario where Apple could communicate to Tim Cook, via his pay package, the message that he remains more valuable to the company than the actual CEO.