The raise before the résumé

John Ternus, Apple's former hardware chief, has taken over as CEO from Tim Cook with a pay package worth about $58 million — more than Cook's new $47 million deal as executive chairman.

That's a lot for a first day. Ternus has run hardware engineering, not a company. No CEO track record yet, no quarter to point to, no trophy on the shelf — and the board handed him the bigger number.

But look before calling it a ratchet. Of his $55 million equity award, three-quarters is performance RSUs whose payout scales with how Apple's total shareholder return ranks against the S&P 500 — beat the field and it's worth more, lag and it's worth less. The rest — a $3 million salary and the other 25% of equity, which vests on time — pays regardless. So a big chunk of the headline number is a bet; not all of it.

Which is the real question for anyone who's ever set a comp package: are you paying for the résumé or the results? Apple's answer looks like "mostly results, priced like a résumé" — hand over the top number to secure the person, tie the biggest slice to a record he hasn't built yet.

If it were your board seat: would you have signed off?