Investors probe Apple's Jobs on successor

AppleInsider joined Apple investors, some of whom traveled from as far away as Europe, at the company's annual shareholders meeting in Cupertino on Tuesday, where Steve Jobs and his executive team were both grilled and lauded for their future outlook and strategy in terms of games, retail operations, corporate accountability, future product plans, and Jobs' future successor as chief executive.

obs started by introducing Daniel Cooperman, Apple's new senior vice president, general counsel, and secretary, who conducted the official portion of the meeting. Jobs also introduced five other board members in attendance, including Bill Campbell, Al Gore, Google's Eric Schmidt, Genentech's Art Levinson, and retail expert Millard Drexler.

The newest member of the board, Avon CEO Andrea Jung, was busy traveling, but shareholders applauded Jobs' recruitment of a woman to serve on Apple's board. Executive diversity had been a subject that received attention from shareholders at previous meetings.

Shareholders were asked to vote to approve the reappointment of board members, which they did, as well as consider two issues raised by shareholders.

The first was a proposal initiated by the AFL-CIO Reserve Fund, which sought to initiate an annual referendum to issue a nonbinding opinion on executive compensation. The same measure only achieved 41% approval last year, but passed this year. Apple's board had recommended voting against the proposal both years, calling it a "blunt and insufficient instrument for registering dissatisfaction."

Jobs later quipped, "I'm hoping that the 'say on pay' proposal will help me with my $1 a year," an allusion to his famously low salary. Jobs has been compensated primarily though stock options, which have exploded in value over the last eight years as Apple's market valuation has rocketed upward.

The second proposal sought to set up a new corporate accountability group to monitor and respond to global issues, but investors did not approve of the measure. Following the official voting session, the meeting was adjourned and Jobs opened the floor up to comments.