Comment by sholain

Share buybacks are are at least nominally a financially neutral exercise - it generally does not benefit either shareholders or executives.

They can however signal 'strength' in stock price by creating more demand and signalling to the market that the company itself which has 'insider information' believes the stock price is worth less than the price they're bought for.

It's a fair point about Jobs - but - Jobs was never sitting on more money than the economies of most nations.

Jobs Apple was a consumer product company, Tim Cook Apple is a Private Equity Operating Entity in a way. Their financial operations dictate as much about their valuation as anything else.