Excess personified in exec wages

	April 22, 2013
THIS WEEK
Apple just keeps churning out geniuses. First we had the late Steve Jobs, the exalted visionary who, legend has it, single-handedly sent Apple soaring. Jobs ended up a billionaire. Then we learned that Jobs had some genius help. Tim Cook, his number two, turned out to be worth $378 million in 2011, the year he succeeded Jobs as CEO. No CEO on the planet took home more that year. Last week we learned that Cook has his own genius sidekicks. In 2012, four of the five top-paid execs in  America served as his understudies: his technology vice president at $85.5 million, his operations VP at $68.7 million, his general counsel at $69 million, and his chief financial guy at $68.6 million. Ron Johnson might have made that group. But Johnson, Apple’s retail genius, left in 2011 to grab a $53 million CEO paycheck at J. C. Penney. How did that work out? An epic disaster. Penney gave Johnson the heave-ho earlier this month. Hmmm. Maybe our executive superstars don’t rate as geniuses after all. Maybe, we suggest this week in Too Much, they just rate as appallingly overpaid. toomuchonline.org