After Five Years of Leading Apple Tim Cook Unlocks Bonuses Worth $100 Million

Five years have passed since Tim Cook was appointed to lead Apple, and the Financial Times has posted a lengthy report looking at how the tech giant has performed since then. During the more than 1800 days spent under Cook’s leadership, Apple has become a company in some ways more open and approachable, and its valuation surged at one point to new all-time highs for any company in the world, the newspaper says.

The Financial Times uses five key metrics to reflect on Cook’s first five years: the success of the iPhone, return of capital, growth in staff numbers, share price and the number of iOS users.

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Apple recently announced the sale of the billionth iPhone, and Cook said the smartphone’s sales growth is only limited by the number of people on the planet in rage of a cellular tower. He showed confidence that every person in the planet will have a smartphone at one point in the future.

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Thanks to the success of the iPhone, Apple’s cash pile has grown from $121 billion (2012) to $232 billion. Of that, 93% is held offshore, so Apple has taken a total of $85 billion in debt in the US and other markets to fund its share buyback program.

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During the past five years, the number of people working at Apple has almost doubled, the FT concludes. The company’s market capitalization went on a similar path: it has doubled in the past 60 months overtaking ExxonMobil to become the world’s most valuable company.

As it has reached its five-year mark, Tim Cook is now entitled to bonuses worth more than $100 million.

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