For Hello readers and other of those poor inadequates who are fascinated by other people’s money, the public prints have been making big play of the fact that Apple Computer Inc’s chairman and chief executive Gilbert Amelio earned near $3m in salary and bonuses for eight months of fiscal 1996, and has options that could conceivably make him much more but are currently deep under water. If he succeeds in turning the stricken company round, he will be worth every penny. If he fails, his earnings will go some way to compensate for a very nasty blot on his escutcheon – after all, being the man in charge when Apple died is in a different league from being the last man on the bridge before a Unisys Corp or a Digital Equipment Corp foundered.
