Nell Minow, a board member of Governance Metrics International, said: "The Apple board has a consistent record of making bad choices with regard to incentive compensation." She went on to say the problem with the award is not its size so much as its form, because it only has upside and no downside.

It would be more correct to say that the Apple board has a history of making market-competitive choices with regards to incentive compensation. The Macalope was of the Steve Jobs's stock options mess back in the day. (Is 2006 long ago enough to be considered "back in the day"? What's the statute of limitations on that?) But it wasn't illegal or uncommon to backdate options. The problem was the failure to disclose the backdating.

The shares Cook has been granted are not options, though. The company's just giving them to him when they vest. Options are a better way of tying performance to compensation, but he does still have the incentive of trying to make the stock go up over the long haul, since the vesting dates are five and ten years out.

"That's a nice, big, fat round number," [Scott Adams, coordinator of the public pension program at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees] said. "It's a lot of money, and we don't know if he's worth it or not."