The Future Is Now: Cook’s Stock Award Signals Continuity At Apple

The Future Is Now: Cook’s Stock Award Signals Continuity At Apple:

Steve Jobs famously returned to Apple as interim CEO after being unceremoniously banished from the company he had helped create and almost single-handedly shaped. After becoming the permanent CEO, he accepted only $1 a year in salary — underlining the fact that Apple needed him more than he needed Apple.

Apple’s board is taking no chances with Jobs’ successor Tim Cook, granting him a one-time stock award worth more than $376 million, the largest given by any company in a decade.

In fact, the only time Apple has granted a stock award worth this much was to Jobs himself: It was worth about $600 million when it was given to him in 2000.

But Cook’s stock only fully vests in ten years, encouraging continuity in the company whose prospects had become perhaps more than any other associated with the leadership of a single man: Jobs. Half of Cook’s bonus vests in 2016 and the other half not in 2021 — giving Jobs’ former right-hand a respectful incentive to stay the course with Apple, and to prove that Apple can stay the course with him at the helm.

Of course, the one million restricted stock units are also meant to symbolize the board’s faith in Cook, who has promised not to change a thing at Apple.

After Jobs’ passing in October, even though Cook had been Apple’s CEO since August, speculation about the company’s future was natural. The consensus has become that with long-time lieutenants Cook and design whiz Jony Ive still around, there would be little to worry about as far as innovation and continuity are concerned. (No word of an award for Ive, and no reason, one would hope, to think this is a problem.)

Surely the keynotes will change, as Cook’s style differs greatly from that of Jobs, but Apple’s spirit of innovation and creativity will remain — if now just with a more business-y facade.

Hopefully for Apple, this $400 million dollar gift will keep Cook around, and help keep Apple’s performance and image both safely intact. And with the company’s stock fluttering around its all-time high, surely some of Apple’s other top executives responsible for the company’s success may be wondering if they might deserve an equity bonus of their own.