HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Downvote all you want.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtuz5OmOh_M The main designs were done already..

Kinda reminds me of that time the Cupertino City Council asked Steve Jobs for free Wifi and iPads in the hearing to approve Apple's new campus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtuz5OmOh_M&t=790

But I guess they all had a good laugh in the end, so it doesn't count?

⬐ thathndude

Thank you for posting. This is exactly what I thought about. Anyone other than Steve probably would have said something like “that’s something we can look into and explore.” Leave it to Steve to be like “nah. We pay our taxes. That’s good.”

⬐ scottlamb

It was probably more "even a broken clock is right twice a day" than a principled stand. He was notoriously cheap. He avoided paying child support for a long time, short-changed Wozniak, etc. [1]

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-jerk-2011-10

⬐ hobs

After working there for a bit the most amazing story I heard is that he would lease a new car every six months so that he wouldnt need to get a plate put on it so he could park in the handicap spot without getting ticketed.

⬐ ashtonkem

I was always under the impression this was less about being cheap, but more about being really idiosyncratic about the way license plates look on cars.

Leasing a new car every 6 months is not cheap. It literally costs 6x as much as leasing the exact same car every 3 years (the industry norm).

⬐ beamatronic

I'm sure they made him a deal. Besides, the dealer could sell the car to somebody else later on at a markup because of its provenance.

⬐ jcranmer

Three questions:

1) How does not having a plate let you park in the handicapped space? The regulation is probably written such that you are required to have the handicapped plate or placard, and displaying no plate would be probable cause here.

2) Why not just have Apple reserve a parking space for the CEO or Steve Jobs outright? There's no regulations against reserving parking spaces in such a manner that I'm aware of.

3) Why is there so much worship in the tech industry of complete assholes like this?

⬐ bonestamp2

1) I don't think it lets him park there, but it's hard to write a ticket without a plate number.

2) Agreed. This story makes no sense, although there is a picture of his car in a handicapped spot, so maybe he just did it once?

3) Lots of brilliant and successful people are assholes. Most people admire the first two qualities and not the third.

⬐ sterlind

Unfortunately, people sometimes idolize the assholery because they associate it with being brilliant and successful. You can be kind and visionary!

⬐ QuercusMax

I thought the handicapped spot story and the every-six-months-new-car-for-no-plates story were separate. Steve didn't want a license plate on his car because he thought it messed up the aesthetics. He was also a jerk and parked in the handicapped spot because he could.

⬐ jsjohnst

They’ve always been separate stories to me too and I’ve heard the same “aesthetics” point a bunch too (which doesn’t make it “true”, but sounds plausible anyway).

⬐ paxys

Steve Jobs - We pay our taxes

Apple's accounting team - Well actually..

⬐ prepend

I’m sure you’re joking, but I think Jobs was referring to property taxes. I’m not sure how much other tax they could contribute to a local town (sales tax is probably much less than the property tax).

Looks like the property at 1 Infinite Loop was assessed at $330M last year, https://www.sccassessor.org/index.php/online-services/proper...

⬐ selectodude

And the property at 1 Apple Park was assessed at $823 million. 1 Apple Park alone is $11m/yr in property tax.

⬐ jxramos

    Steve: I'm a simpleton I've always had this view that we pay taxes and the city should do
    those things. That's why we pay taxes. Now if we can get out of paying taxes I'll be glad to put up Wi-Fi.

⬐ baby

Here's how you write a quote:

> Steve: I'm a simpleton I've always had this view that we pay taxes and the city should do those things. That's why we pay taxes. Now if we can get out of paying taxes I'll be glad to put up Wi-Fi. reply

⬐ talaketu

False - that's how you write it.

⬐ 1123581321

It’s not illegal to joke about bribery.

⬐ mlyle

I'm not sure why people are treating this like it's bribery.

Free wifi would be something that inures to the benefit of the city / jurisdiction, not primarily to the individual decisionmakers or their department. It may not be something legitimate that they can make planning approval dependent upon, but an elected body trying to negotiate something that sweetens the deal for their electorate is completely legitimate.

Indeed, back before California ended development controls, my city's planning department effectively ran a huge reverse auction, picking the housing developments that would make the biggest street and park improvements in excess of the statutory minimums to authorize for each year's development quota. (A bit more complicated than that: various ways that the development exceeded building code or had additional amenities also counted for points in the "competition").

⬐ sjwright

Correct. And it’s not illegal to investigate when nominal jokes about bribery may be construed as code inviting actual bribery.

⬐ 1123581321

I recognize the clever point. Investigations in cases such as these will gather evidence to bring to a grand jury, which will issue indictment. So investigation would either proceed to either the grand jury trial, or be abandoned due to lack of evidence. In the case of jokes, it would be the latter, and experienced offices would recognize this early, perhaps before beginning, and focus on other cases.

⬐ rjkennedy98

Yeah, Apple doesn't pay taxes, they sure got the last laugh.

⬐ dehrmann

Half of the joke was probably the Cupertino city council being jealous of Google providing free wifi for Mountain View.

Jobs has a good point about "paying taxes." In the last few years, a lot of people in the Bay Area outside tech are saying things like "why doesn't tech do more to build more housing." They pay taxes, and tech workers living in the cities are paying income and property taxes. The communities should be asking themselves why they, themselves, aren't building more housing. What did they think these added tax dollars should be going it?

⬐ resfirestar

"We pay our taxes" sounds a bit disingenuous from a company that is famous for aggressively offshoring its profits to avoid paying US and California taxes, the latter of which would directly contribute to local housing programs.

⬐ neilc

Apple's effective worldwide tax rate is ~25%, which is actually slightly higher than other US multinationals. That is also not counting taxes on income/capital gains paid by California employees, which are obviously pretty sizable.

⬐ telchar

"Apple’s effective U.S. federal income tax rate was just 7.3% in 2011. Apple claimed its tax rate in 2011 was 24.2%, one-third less than the official tax rate of 35%. But the Senate subcommittee found its rate was no more than 20.1%, allowing "Apple to claim credit for $3 billion of deferred taxes on overseas income that are not owed until the profits are brought back to the United States. Since Apple has said that is not likely to happen, its effective tax rate in 2011 was just 7.3% – $2.5 billion in taxes actually paid against $34.2 billion of income before taxes. [Exhibit 1a, pp. 38-39]"[0]

[0] https://americansfortaxfairness.org/issues/corporate-taxes/h...

⬐ dehrmann

Normally, I'd say that actually cheats the federal government out of tax revenue (for now), but Apple actually is incorporated in California, not Delaware, and California has various corporate taxes.

That said, it doesn't make sense for the global profits of a company like Apple to get taxed in California or Cupertino. The accounting isn't necessarily easy, but it makes more sense to tax where was money was made (which is murky and complicated) than to funnel it all to the HQ; Apple is more than just a spaceship in one city.

This isn't to say Apple isn't doing things to avoid paying taxes, either. My point is that using corporate taxes of a company with global sales to solve local issues doesn't make sense.

⬐ maxerickson

Apple's marketing is that the money is made in California. Designed by Apple in California has long appeared as a feel good on their products that are assembled overseas.

⬐ rkt88edmo

I would point you to all that cash sitting offshore that they can't repatriate back to the US, and can't seem to find productive use for in the countries where it sits. That is the direct result of tax planning. I haven't been keeping up with the cases, but I know Amazon won, and Coca-cola just lost, not sure where Apple's cases are in tax court. Hopefully they aren't an EY audit/tax client.

⬐ PEJOE

They are in fact an EY client (as is Coke). Not sure about Amazon

⬐ maxerickson

Okay. My belief is that their marketing is more indicative of their ethos than their tax planning though.

⬐ MH15

But Apple doesn't exactly have a history of "paying taxes".

⬐ neilc

Sure it does -- Apple's effective worldwide tax rate is ~25%. Like every US multinational, Apple structure themselves to optimize their tax burden, but it's not like they "have a history of not paying taxes".

⬐ sitzkrieg

you're on a tear posting this at face value

⬐ fastball

You don't even need tax dollars to build more housing, all you need is not NIMBYism.

Unfortunately the Bay Area has that in spades.

⬐ microtherion

Yes, in communities like Cupertino, the cities themselves are downright hostile to housing: https://medium.com/yimby/the-latest-on-vallco-explained-9d37...

When the planning commission of a city likens housing advocacy to "an onslaught of anarchists and YIMBY Neoliberal fascists", rational process has pretty much broken down.

⬐ electriclove

It exists everywhere

⬐ fastball

It is demonstrably worse in BA than in most other places in the US.

Places like Japan don't seem to have much of a problem with it at all.

⬐ et-al

Places like Japan have negative birthrates and restrictive immigration policies.

NIMBYism is a reaction to a sudden influx of newcomers to an area. As such, hot remote work spots like Bend, OR are very likely experiencing a similar NIMBYist mindset.

⬐ Schiendelman

Tokyo has continuous growth, and almost no NIMBYism. While Japan as a whole has negative birthrates and restrictive immigration policies, Tokyo has neither.

The comment you’re responding to is a real, important difference between Japan’s response to growth (in the Tokyo area) and other cities and regions’ responses to growth. Handwaving it doesn’t help.

⬐ et-al

I'm curious what you think is the difference between Japan's response to growth versus other places. Given the fact that Japan zones on a federal vs local level, this already reduces the potential of NIMBYists blocking new development. However this does not mean that NIMBYism does not exist there.

⬐ Schiendelman

It largely doesn’t exist there because they’re so monocultural. Zoning in the US was created explicitly to preserve racial divisions in neighborhoods.

⬐ anonuser123456

Everyone important in the Bay Area already got theirs. If you're important enough, eventually you will get yours too.

NIMBYism is great if you're a somebody.

This reminds me how Steve Jobs answered the question about how city residents will benefit from their new campus (2011) [1]. So I honestly don't get why in the US of all countries private company have to solve problem that government supposedly taxes them for.

[1] https://youtu.be/gtuz5OmOh_M?t=663

⬐ Aperocky

Any benefit that's passed out will go through nine hoops of doubt and support an entire agency of people before actually distributed.

Any fines however, is administered quickly and efficiently.

⬐ jedberg

It's funny to watch this now. Living in Cupertino, none of those benefits materialized. Only 10% of Apple's workforce lives in Cupertino (thanks in large part to those busses he talked about). Apple barely pays any taxes in the city, because they get a bunch of tax breaks. Their employees do patronize the local restaurants to some extent, but for the most part they eat in their cafeterias.

And most importantly, the campus is closed to the public. The original proposal was to make the center of a spaceship a public park, but somehow they managed to get it approved as a private space.

⬐ Apocryphon

Absolutely appalling.

Question towards Steve Jobs on a Cupertino City Council Meeting in 2011:

"[How do] city residents benefit from [Apple's new campus]?"

Jobs: "Well, as you know, we're the largest taxpayer in Cupertino. So we'd like to continue to stay here and pay taxes. [...]. Because if we can't, then we have to go somehwere like Mountain View [and] the largest tax base will go away. This wouldn't be good for Cupertino."

https://youtu.be/gtuz5OmOh_M?t=11m1s

⬐ jinushaun

Oh yeah, I remember that guy from the hearing. It's incredible he still has a job. His remarks were so sleazy and obviously corrupt.

⬐ drzaiusapelord

Can you blame him? There's nothing sleazier than municipal governments, at least once they reach a certain size. They all see the business class as a gravy train to ride instead of finding ways to do a better job with the already large budgets they have.

Chicago doesn't have a Jobs to control it, so its endless tax raises to pay for sweetheart public union pension deals and other backroom corruption. I think the internet-friendly narrative of government being bullied by evil corporations is a fairly unrealistic. Its usually the other way around.

I find it amusing that so many have an undying love for Jobs' judgement in business, technology, etc but his political dealings give them pause because it goes against the left's idea of how the world works. Jobs didn't act like this to be difficult, he said and did these things because its one of the more effective ways to control a city government that can hurt or even destroy your business trivially.

⬐ tamana

Size has nothing to do with it. Plenty of small sleazy munis too

⬐ PavlovsCat

While we're talking generalities, here's something more serious.

> What has been created by this half century of massive corporate propaganda is what's called "anti-politics". So that anything that goes wrong, you blame the government. Well okay, there's plenty to blame the government about, but the government is the one institution that people can change... the one institution that you can affect without institutional change. That's exactly why all the anger and fear has been directed at the government. The government has a defect - it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect - they're pure tyrannies. So therefore you want to keep corporations invisible, and focus all anger on the government. So if you don't like something, you know, your wages are going down, you blame the government. Not blame the guys in the Fortune 500, because you don't read the Fortune 500. You just read what they tell you in the newspapers... so you don't read about the dazzling profits and the stupendous dizz, and the wages going down and so on, all you know is that the bad government is doing something, so let's get mad at the government.

-- Noam Chomsky

⬐ strictnein

Oh boy... a Chomsky quote.

> "so you don't read about the dazzling profits and the stupendous dizz, and the wages going down and so on"

Yeah, that's never in the news.

⬐ PavlovsCat

Oh, an ad-hominem and a straw man, and of course total avoidance of the core point. What a surprise.

⬐ rfrey

What? There's no ad-hominem there. And what straw man? Chomsky claimed in the quoted sentence that things like huge corporate profits were not reported, your parent post says that's incorrect and they're often reported. Maybe he's right, maybe you're right, but there's no straw man.

Sometimes I feel like people have browser plugins that randomly pluck sins from the Wikipedia page for logical fallacies.

⬐ PavlovsCat

> What? There's no ad-hominem there

"oh boy, a Chomsky quote"? That implies no connotation there to you? There is no ad hominem you notice then.

> Chomsky claimed in the quoted sentence that things like huge corporate profits were not reported, your parent post says that's incorrect and they're often reported

Does that address the central point, or does it take one sentence out of context, then takes it literally without seeing the woods for the trees? Call it a straw man, call it not getting the point and splitting irrelevant hairs, same difference. Yes, all sorts of things do get reported, nope, doesn't change anything about the gist of the quote.

Here's a random comment from you to explain it better:

> your remarks are no different than a 7 year old putting down somebody for throwing like a girl.

Does that mean that's what they are literally saying, saying word by word the exact same sentence any 7 year old would say? Is the discussion about throwing? You didn't say "similar to", you said "no difference", after all. It gets worse, notice that you said "7 year old", not "roughly 7 years old". So a person who is exact 7 years old, no day, no minute, not even a second, not even tenth of a second older... but hey, it would take too long for any child to say a few words while they are still exactly 7, we could even wonder if that exact moment can even be found. So that clearly makes no sense.

Imagine getting such a response of someone either acting dumb or not getting it, and when you call it out as such, you get MORE games and a downvote. You would notice the problem quite easily, why don't you notice it here? Maybe because you don't even feel forced to seriously think about it; the difference is not that the Chomsky quote has been dealt with even just one iota more seriously or more honestly, the difference is in where the status quo lies, and what power doesn't care about or even supports. When you are on its side, one can get away with "oh boy, a Chomsky quote" and other such nonsense. Just like you could accuse someone of throwing like a girl around jocks no questions asked. Nobody will ever take you to task for your response to me. It's not like you just called anyone a racial slur, you just supported someone dismissing words with utter sophistry. Nothing to even skip a beat over, right? And the interwebs is positively littered with that, that's kind of one of the reactions Chomsky evokes. You might call him a litmus test.

And you know, I said "ad-hominem and straw man" because I didn't want to insult anyone's intelligence with this rant. It's not that I can't back up what I say in however much detail you need, I just find it unproductive. Just like I tend to collect and re-post quotes that say things I agree with; which I could say in my own words, in more words and less elegantly. Why do that, when there is a "quote for the occasion"? When people interpret a quote as saying "this is true because X says it", that's their problem, I don't operate that way.

⬐ rfrey

OK, well in my opinion if your complaint was that the original poster was misinterpreting or misrepresenting Chomsky, I think it would have been more helpful to say that, and maybe to reiterate the central point that you (through the Chomsky quote) were trying to convey.

To me, the "oh boy, a Chomsky quote" telegraphed the writer's bias against Chomsky, and the follow-on sentence showed what the writer read in your quote. Bias or dislike for a writer is not ad-hominem: it's bias and dislike. And the interpretation of the sentence was fair: a central theme of Chomsky is that the media acts to maintain the status quo, through selective reporting. And a fair criticism of Chomsky is that observation shows a fair bit of reporting on many sides of many issues.

That's quite a bit different then the comment you pulled from me (posted minutes after this one, and a pretty good indicator that I'm probably too cranky to be using the Internet this evening), since the throw-like-a-girl quote makes no sense outside of its context: you have to manufacture context for it to make sense. The Chomsky snippet you object to makes perfect sense to anyone who's read Chomsky, and even if not, the poster can hardly be accused of trying to sneak something past us when the full quote is right above it.

I like Chomsky: I think he's smart and observant and courageous. But that interpretation was what I got out of the quote as well, even though I'll bet we're pretty aligned on many issues. So if that wasn't what you meant I think you would have been better served with a response that actually said the point you were trying to make. Saying "ad hominem!" just because somebody doesn't like Chomsky doesn't serve you or your argument.

⬐ wutbrodo

> What? There's no ad-hominem there.

I don't like Chomsky either, but "Oh boy, a Chomsky quote" and the implication that it's somehow less valid because of its provenance is pretty much the definition of an _ad hominem_.

⬐ WavingThe44

In my limited experience, any kind of negotiation where the parties have a weak or a bit of an adversarial relationship, will probably degenerate into this kind of shin-kicking and posturing about walking away on both sides.

> Barry Chang barely made it into the lobby when Apple’s security team surrounded and escorted him off the property.

I had to read it again to make sure I'm not making a mistake. Its unimaginable in some geographies. Evokes mixed feelings like : "cool, they can do that?" to "that's quite arrogant"

Also reminds me of a video where Steve Jobs met the council. The mayor was delighted like a teenager, showing off his iPad to Steve, asking for free Wifi : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtuz5OmOh_M ( t=19:54 )

⬐ pc86

Why couldn't they? It's private property.

⬐ sourcd

As I said, in some countries, you can't treat an on duty public/government "servant" like that.

⬐ justin66

If he'd been a police officer investigating a crime, or a fire marshall, that wouldn't fly. Doing it to the mayor is just rude.

⬐ dragontamer

> If he'd been a police officer investigating a crime,

Which means he'd have to have a warrant. If an Officer was "just investigating", they have to be invited or have a court order to get onto private property.

In America anyway.

⬐ justin66

It's not quite that simple. If the police officer has probable cause to believe a crime is in progress, or the fire marshal believes a dangerous code violation might exist, woe to the dumbass who tries to escort them off the property.

Otherwise, yes, a police investigator needs permission, or a warrant, to go onto the Apple campus and ask questions or look around.

⬐ imjk

But he wasn't even the mayor at the time he visited.

⬐ ptaipale

It depends. If the mayor has been rude or dishonest himself, it isn't. And as someome said, this does not quite pass the smell test.

⬐ pflats

And walking into someone's place of work uninvited, expecting them to drop everything and meet with you isn't rude?

I'd be rightly ticked off if someone did that to me, and I'm not one of the worlds richest and most secretive companies.

⬐ ams6110

I would generally agree that someone like a mayor or governor deserves some default level of respect, but if he just showed up, unannounced, and "hoped to have a meeting" what did he really think would happen?

Most people, even mayors, make appointments when they formally visit another organization in an official capacity. They don't just walk in and expect to be seen.

⬐ maverick_iceman

Like North Korea?

⬐ whatok

Like countries under some fascist regime?

⬐ None

None

⬐ dragontamer

I agree. This is... worrisome behavior of a Mayor.

> Getting local politicians to battle Apple is hard, Chang said. He recently proposed that Apple – which is building a massive new campus its own employees nicknamed the Death Star, or more favorably, The Spaceship – should give $100m to improve city infrastructure. To move on the proposal, Chang only needed to get a single vote ‘yes’ among the three other eligible council members. He failed to get that vote.

What's his logic for this special Tax on Apple? It sounds like this guy is an anti-corporate loon, drinking too much Sanders juice or something. Sounds like the other council members are more rational.

⬐ demarq

>What's his logic for this special Tax on Apple

"You’re helping create the problems, so you have to help solve the problem" - Chang

⬐ ams6110

(From near the end of the article) They (Apple) are already funding 18% of the city. I would argue that's dangerously undiversified already, and they want to increase the percentage?

How much of the city services do they use? How much of the city expenses is their "fair" share?

⬐ dragontamer

Maybe if he described what these problems were, he's get my support.

But considering that he can't even get the support of his own citizens at Town Hall meetings, nor the support of his fellow council members, methinks he's simply incompetent.

And that the problems he describes are made up in his imagination. I can't imagine it to be too difficult to come up with a budget that says "We have to pay for X Million Dollars in the next year to fix the bridges and roads... or to upgrade our water pipes, or to deploy municipal gigabit-fiber. So here's a special +5% tax on all corporations in this Town"

And if the fellow citizens and council members think the plan is worth the tax, then they'll probably agree with him. On the other hand, if citizens are balling up his agendas and throwing them out during meetings... there's clearly a problem here. And it isn't with Apple. Its with the Mayor.

⬐ None

None

⬐ demarq

> Maybe if he described what these problems were, he's get my support.

I believe the city's infrastructure is struggling to cope with the city's growth. There was mentions of poor and congested roads.

> But considering that he can't even get the support of his own citizens at Town Hall meetings, nor the support of his fellow council members, methinks he's simply incompetent.

to be fair the article points out Apples image as a stumbling block to bring reform:

1) "In the case of Apple, people are so enamored with their iPhones that they can’t see the company. And year after year these companies are voted most respected, most trusted" - Matt Gardner

2) "he tried to organize a rally outside Apple. “But Apple has a pretty good image,” Chang said. “No one wanted to go"

> So here's a special +5% tax on all corporations in this Town

Chang has come up with such a proposal already, albeit it won't levy the extra tax on companies with less than a 100 employees.

> a problem here. And it isn't with Apple. Its with the Mayor.

That could be the case, though I'm leaning towards the Mayors side. This article doesn't go into much depth, and yield enough detail for me to come to a conclusion. I would do some background research but I honestly can't be bothered today. I have a feeling this isn't the last time we here of this, so i'll keep this in the back of my mind for future reference.

⬐ dragontamer

Don't mention Apple explicitly in a law.

IE: Lets increase all corporate taxes by 3% in this city, to pay for a new road project. Here's the proposed road, etc. etc.

I mean, yeah, its hard to get approval from your citizens to build new roads. My area (on the East Coast) had to appease a ton of environmentalist types who refused to build a highway over any wetlands or swamps (ie: cheap areas), and the NIMBY guys who were being threatened with eviction.

But you propose a road (meet with engineers / architects, get some fancy drawings, write it up, build a website, etc.), you describe the costs (not just monetary, but also the houses you have to bulldoze, the "quiet" you have to disturb, meet with HOA communities to help gather support despite the costs), you raise a tax to pay for it, borrow some money with a bond and then it gets done. Its not easy, but its the freaking job of a Mayor.

---------

Why would the Mayor EVER have to explicitly reference Apple through this process? Only a complete dunce would do that, as it reeks of favoritism.

I'm reading through this entire piece, and its completely devoid of substance. The complaints are hilariously awful. I'm not sure if the Mayor is actually incompetent, or if the guardian is just awful at writing and completely focused on the wrong issues.

I mean, cripes. I've NEVER heard of a necessary road project being scuttled because of money. Its almost always the NIMBY people (to be fair, getting evicted from your family home for 50 years gotta suck because a road is being built through your plot), or environmentalists (Protect the swamp! protect the forest! Protect the grasslands!) who seem to get in the way. And NIMBY vs Environmentalists is a hell of an issue to work out.

⬐ nihonde

The idea that Apple isn't the best thing that ever happened to Cupertino, California is hilarious.

⬐ jefurii

No, the idea that the city should have to provide roads, utilities, etc to a huge, rich corporation and get nothing back for their trouble is terrible.

⬐ nihonde

Creating the world's most successful company in your backyard, attracting high-value talent from all over the world, making Cupertino a household name...is "giving nothing back"?

⬐ fit2rule

How do any of those things improve the lives of non-Apple citizens living in Cupertino?

⬐ nihonde

That's a fair question. A massively successful technology company can locate itself just about anywhere it wants to. In fact, there are plenty of places that will offer very compelling incentives to a company like Apple to move into their locality. Why would they do that if it's of no benefit to the people? I guess you could argue that corrupt politicians will offer those incentives to secure bribes, etc., but here you have the mayor of Cupertino complaining.

⬐ oarsinsync

The other industry that comes to the town off the back of it. The extra demand for goods and services.

⬐ evan_

Some of the people coming to Cupertino to work for Apple will buy houses in Cupertino, send their kids to school in Cupertino, spend the money they make in Cupertino, etc... Not to mention all of the extra jobs that need to be filled taking care of the buildings and the spoiled engineers, the hotel rooms for visiting emissaries and WWDC attendees, the construction jobs building those new houses and schools...

Edit: I don't want to sound like I'm saying "the town should be grateful for these scraps and nothing more", these are benefits to the town on top of the taxes that it pays.

⬐ icebraining

According to the article, Apple pays for 18% of the city budget. Is that nothing?

⬐ Mvandenbergh

Of course that would be absurd and unfair. That's why property taxes exist, to pay for local infrastructure. Apple pays a lot of property taxes in Cupertino.

Property taxes are based on the value of (and in some cases the type of use of) local property, that's reasonable because the costs incurred by the local government to build and maintain infrastructure is related to their use of land.

His argument seems to be that because Apple makes a lot of money they should also pay more taxes, luckily for him that's the way the system works! Apple also pays corporation tax on their income.

Unfortunately for him that tax is federal and not local so he doesn't get any more than any other local government does in federal contributions.

⬐ dragontamer

I don't like this idea. Corporations should pay taxes and whatever, and not be treated specially just because they're the largest entity in the town.

A huge number of towns in America are basically run by one or two corporations. Cupertino is not unique in the slightest, aside from the fact that Apple is just a larger company.

But it really doesn't matter if you "only" have a $1 Billion market cap company headquartered in your small 30,000 town, or a $600 Billion behemoth like Apple. Its all basically the same: all your taxes are basically going to come from only one source.

------------

In either cases, you can run the town independently of the corporation. True: a lot of the corporation's workers will be your citizens, but keep the issues separate and keep things fair... and you ought to get what you need done.

⬐ kuschku

There is a solution how you can get both.

The German city of Wolfsburg, and the state of Niedersachsen have done it with VW.

The solution: You just buy a large amount of shares of the companies that are started in your city. Municipalities get a far larger share of the profits directly, politicians have an incentive to ensure companies are profitable, and companies can’t avoid paying for the infrastructure they use.

⬐ whatok

This is an awful idea. Governments do not have the expertise to participate as an psuedo-activist investor. On top of that, what happens when the city's crown jewel goes bankrupt and those shares go to zero? Diversification is key. There's a reason why there were so many pension changes post-Enron. It's not good for individuals to be so heavily concentrated into a single company and it sure is not good for cities.

⬐ kuschku

If all big companies in a city go down, the city will suffer anyway – investing in the large companies in your city can’t make things worse.

The German government has done it for several decades, with great success – you should take a look at their model.

⬐ whatok

My understanding is that Wolfsburg was built in order to house Volkswagen workers. There is a massive difference in planning a city around a specific need versus a well-established city investing in companies. While I still do not agree with governments investing in companies, I will say that it makes more sense if you are planning an entire city around it.

In all other cases, cities investing in companies are either going to take on a VC role which I'd very much argue that they are not capable of performing well (and introduces so much room for corruption) or will be investing in mature companies and likely without the balance sheet to make a dent as far as voting power goes. I don't see how either leads to anything productive.

⬐ dragontamer

> Governments do not have the expertise to participate as an psuedo-activist investor.

Don't have an American bias when people share their cultures from around the world.

There are a lot of governments, and all of our experience with the American government basically means jack diddly with respect to the German government.

With that said, I do share your concerns, but I'm not going to make claims about a government I never visited and never worked with in my life that's roughly 10 time-zones away.

⬐ whatok

There's no American bias on this. If the world's activist investors employ extremely highly paid and numerous staff and maybe get things 50/50, what type of staff will a government employ that can do better?

⬐ kuschku

Not all governments act like the typical government you know.

The German government, for example, owns several large banking groups, which act like any normal banking group – but their dividends directly go into the tax budget. (And they have to give loans at lower interest rates to the governments).

Normal bankers, in normal environment, and they’d probably never notice it was government owned.

⬐ spacemanmatt

This municipal capture you describe sounds brilliant.

⬐ kuschku

And it means the municipal government provides funding for smaller companies, which gives those an advantage, and they don’t even take large risks either. It’s a win-win-win-win situation.

⬐ nihonde

That's an excellent point——can you imagine if the government of Cupertino bought AAPL shares in the 1980s? They sure wouldn't be complaining about tax revenues today!

⬐ spacecowboy_lon

Try just walking into a telephone company like ATT or BT building unannounced and you will be escorted out even assuming you can get past the turnstiles, Exchanges (Central Offices) have even stricter security.

⬐ i386

This doesn't pass the sniff test for me. It makes it sound like a conspiracy when reality is usually so very mundane.

Companies don't do that unless people turn up randomly, start making crazy claims ("take me to Steve Jobs! I'm here regarding traffic congestion!") and start acting like an ass when they don't get what they want.

Just pure speculation on my part.

This reminds me of when Jobs was proposing the new Apple headquarters to the Cupertino city council: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtuz5OmOh_M, or heck, this dunk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INK-Pr6Z82A. Thrilling to watch, but ultimately it's easy to win a negotiation when you're in the stronger position. What I really wish existed is a transcript from Jobs making his first sale.

I guess their plans changed.

Here's Jobs saying that they'll be producing their own power using natural gas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g...

> Jobs [...] probably lied about having worked at Hewlett-Packard

This was the truth, wasn't it? Or at least, if it is a lie, it's one Jobs was repeating to the Cupertino City Council just this year http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtuz5OmOh_M#t=2m00s . Maybe he exaggerated his work experience with HP...

I believe they're building one in Cupertino next to the new Apple HQ:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtuz5OmOh_M#t=505s

He actually called Bill Hewlett [1], one of the founders of Hewlett and Packard [2].

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Reddington_Hewlett

⬐ whyenot

You're right. Bill, not Bob. Thank you for the correction :)

⬐ HardyLeung

It's almost embarrassing to watch... the City Council's questions to Steve Jobs.

Q: Can we, like, get some freebies such as free wifi?

Just looking at the proposed plans and comparing to Google Maps, I'd give a rough guestimate of 1100 ft for the building's diameter. So, that's about 3450 ft in circumference. That means a single degree of arc would cover about 960 ft. If each pane of glass were 10x48 and flat (as long as the building is tall), then they would form a 7200-sided polygon, and the angle between them would be 179.95 degrees, or a deflection of 0.05 degrees. So, while they claim a curved window, you wouldn't notice if it was flat. Unless, of course, my math is horribly misguided.

Edit: well somebody didn't like that. Anyway, I can't speak for the math, but my source for the diameter guestimate: The building site shown at [1], and the same site on Google maps [2]. Notice the scale in the bottom, showing 1000 ft. The building plan appears slightly larger than that, so that's where I got my estimate.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtuz5OmOh_M&feature=playe...

[2] http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...

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⬐ erikpukinskis

How do you get a 7200 sided polygon from a 3450 ft circumference? That would be 6 inch wide windows. Steve mentioned them having a process to create the largest pieces of glass in the world... which look to be on the order of 10+ ft wide. That would mean at most 360 panes of glass, each turning a full degree.

Maybe it's not easily perceptible, but how much do you wanna bet they mocked it up and Steve was like "Yeah, you can tell the difference. It just doesn't feel right."

⬐ redthrowaway

See, I knew the math was wrong... thanks for pointing that out.