Jobs: 'I make fifty cents just for showing up'
At Apple’s annual shareholders meeting in Cupertino on Thursday, Steve Jobs and other company executives heard criticism about the company’s stock-options scandal and the recently announced delay of of the forthcoming Leopard version of Mac OS X, while Jobs himself dished out some criticism of the environmental group Greenpeace.
Greenpeace and environmental issues
Although many observers anticipated that shareholders would criticize Apple about its environmental record due to the ongoing campaign against Apple by the
environmental group Greenpeace, that criticism seemed to have largely been blunted by Jobs’ essay
“A Greener Apple,” which was posted on Apple.com
on April 4.
Two representatives from Greenpeace were present at the meeting and congratulated Jobs and Apple for the company’s commitment to the environment.
“
I think your organization particularly depends too much on principle and not enough on fact,” Jobs said to the Greenpeace representatives. “You guys rate people based on what people say their plans are in the distant future, not what they are doing today. I think you put way too much weight on these glorified principles and way too little weight on science and engineering.
It would be very helpful if your organization hired a few more engineers and actually entered into dialog with companies to find out what they are really doing and not just listen to all the flowery language when in reality most of them aren’t doing anything. That’s my opinion.”
Jobs then gave an example of his complaints: In looking for alternate means of producing products without hazardous chemicals, he said, Apple talked to some of the only organizations in the world that could make it happen. Despite the fact other computer makers have claimed they were working on alternatives, Jobs said Apple was the first computer company those organizations had actually heard from.
Jobs then offered to help Greenpeace improve its measuring technology, saying that while Apple supported the idea of an environmental report card, it needed to be a real report card based on science.
Executive pay
When shareholders questioned Jobs about the way Apple compensates its executive compensation, Jobs said that it was his responsibility to plan the compensation for everyone in the company except himself. The CEO — who has an annual salary of $1, although
Forbes magazine
estimated his 2006 compensation at $646 million — joked about his own paycheck.
“It’s a pretty simple meeting when it comes to me,” Jobs said. “I get 50 cents a year just for showing up, and the other 50 cents is based on my performance.”
The iPhone and Leopard
In a discussion about the forthcoming release of the
iPhone and the recent delay of Mac OS X Leopard, Jobs said part of his responsibility at Apple was to make tough decisions that affect the products the company is working on. Jobs said that while the decision to delay Leopard was not popular with some people, he believed it was the right one to make.
“Leopard will be worth the wait,” Jobs promised.
The Apple CEO also said that his company can’t make up for a limited amount of engineering resources simply by throwing money at the problem. He said that the reason Apple is innovative is because the company is careful in who it hires, and so the process of growing the company’s talent pool can take years.
“I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check,” Jobs said. “If so, then Microsoft would have great products.”
Jobs also pointed out the challenges Apple faces when entering the cellular phone market. He pointed out that in 2006 there were 135 million MP3 players and 200 million PCs sold. In contrast, during 2006 one billion cell phones were sold.
Read more...
Note:
For your convenience, I've bolded the things which I beleive are the main points.
This is a summarized version of the page.
My Opinion:
“I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check,” Jobs said. “If so, then Microsoft would have great products.”
Steve just rocks!!!
Jobs addresses Leopard, iPHONE, environment at shareholder meeting
Linear Mode
