Yeah because that's just what we need, another asinine interpretation of an event in which the CEO was basically hand-tied to do one thing: not fuck up PR. And let's just ignore the legal precedents where companies were sued for their philanthropic work, and indeed lost. (see the many court cases in which courts end up ruling that companies are not allowed to engage in purely philanthropic duties when there is a rigid fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits; see eBay vs. Craigslist).
And anyway, actions speak louder than words. What I know of Apple is that it had a CEO who orchestrated keeping wages down for engineers, orchestrated price fixing of ebooks, kept taking credit for other people's work, frequently partook in borderline psychopathic behavior (woz: "I begged Steve that we donate the first Apple I to a woman who took computers into elementary schools but he made my buy it and donate it myself."), etc. etc. If Tim Cook actually goes on to commit some serious dollar on philanthropic activities, I would change my mind about Apple, until then, it's clear that it's all a bullshit PR dance.
Cool, good to hear, I didn't know about this. It seems to be a small step, but at least it's a step in the right direction. I hope Apple makes it a point to advertise everywhere that they're doing this (so that other companies can follow). I think America would do well to have a policy compelling publicly owned companies to have social goals (apart from the profit-maximizing ones).
>(see the many court cases in which courts end up ruling that companies are not allowed to engage in purely philanthropic duties when there is a rigid fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits; see eBay vs. Craigslist).
I saw both the Delaware version and the California version of eBay vs. Craigslist. Neither had anything to do with philanthropy. They involved a poison pill strategy. At the risk of standing in the way of a good rant, I think you'll need a better example.
And anyway, actions speak louder than words. What I know of Apple is that it had a CEO who orchestrated keeping wages down for engineers, orchestrated price fixing of ebooks, kept taking credit for other people's work, frequently partook in borderline psychopathic behavior (woz: "I begged Steve that we donate the first Apple I to a woman who took computers into elementary schools but he made my buy it and donate it myself."), etc. etc. If Tim Cook actually goes on to commit some serious dollar on philanthropic activities, I would change my mind about Apple, until then, it's clear that it's all a bullshit PR dance.