Apple Dominates List of Highest Paid Execs

If you want to be the highest-paid tech exec on the block, you should probably head over to 1 Infinite Loop.

Four of the five highest-paid employees at Standard & Poor's 500 companies last year were senior executives at Apple, according to Bloomberg, which examined fiscal 2012 compensation figures filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

As competition heats up with heavyweights Google and Samsung, Cupertino continues to throw money at employees in hopes of keeping its team intact, according to Bloomberg. Opus Research analyst Greg Sterling told the news service that Apple wants to "be sure the actual talents that they bring to the company are retained, and also from a perception standpoint to retain confidence in the leadership."

The 2012 report marks the second consecutive year in which Apple execs nabbed the highest payouts in the country.

Cupertino's lucky four includes Bob Mansfield, Bruce Sewell, Jeffrey Williams, and Peter Oppenheimer, all of whom earned a base salary of $805,400, before receiving 150,000 in restricted stock units in late 2011.

At the top of the heap sits 52-year-old Mansfield, Apple's senior vice president of technologies, who earned a total $85.5 million (mostly in stock) and the second-place spot among the S&P 500. Mansfield planned to retire last summer, but was persuaded to stay with the company, where he'd led the hardware engineering group. Team members reportedly complained about Mansfield's replacement, Dan Riccio, according to Bloomberg.

As Apple's head lawyer, Sewell, 54, earned his $69 million last year working patent infringement cases, including the $1.05 billion win over Samsung. Meanwhile, 49-year-old Williams, the senior vice president of operations who took over Apple's supply chain, as well as its somewhat troubled relationship with Foxconn and other manufacturing partners, went home with $68.7 million last year.

Finally, 50-year-old Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer received $68.6 million in compensation in 2012, landing him in fifth place among 2,050 executives at 410 companies.

Apple did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment.

All four earned more than chief executive Tim Cook, who earned "only" $4.2 million last year — the low point for his roller coaster of a salary over the last three years. Just before taking over for Steve Jobs, Cook was paid a whopping $378 million, compared to $59.1 million in 2010, when he last served as Apple's COO for an entire year.

All four Apple execs trailed Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison, who came in at No. 1 with $96.2 million last year.

Bloomberg's data not include information about those whose total compensation was not disclosed in annual proxy filings, like Apple's marketing chief Phil Schiller or head of Internet services Eddy Cue.

Rounding out the top 10, according to Bloomberg, are Oracle co-presidents Mark Hurd and Safra Catz — with about $51.7 million each, CBS CEO Les Moonves, Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav, and Occidental Petroleum Corp. Chairman Ray Irani.