top | item 34462575

Tell HN: Sundar Pichai made $8M today

41 points| tinktank | 3 years ago | reply

If gurufocus is to be believed, he owns approx 1.76M shares. GOOGL closed at $98, up $5 today. Not bad for causing more hardship and pain on a +$100B reserve balance.

43 comments

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[+] ajaimk|3 years ago|reply
Every googler who got laid off today that owns google shares made the same % in earnings today. This doesn’t matter.

The goal is to increase shareholder value. And most of the increase today was due to macro market trends and not due to the layoffs (everything went up today)

[+] khazhoux|3 years ago|reply
> The goal is to increase shareholder value

I know this is the "official" corporate governance imperative for a public company, but in practice this isn't how companies are run (or at least, not Google/etc). Sundar isn't thinking about "shareholder value"... he's thinking about how to make the company (and its employees) successful. Which of course, sometimes means cutting people loose.

[+] tinktank|3 years ago|reply
Ah yes, the ever important shareholder value.

Quite.

[+] gernb|3 years ago|reply
Just off the cuff guessing but 12000 people cost $1.2 to $4.8 billon a year

Google has 180k people, minus 12k = 168k. That means their burn rate is 16.8 to 84 billon a year

I'm speaking out of my ass because I don't know the average salary and overhead of a google employee but the low numbers assume $100k a year no zero overhead.

Please check my math

12000 * $100k = 1.2 billon

168k * $100k = 16.8 billon

[+] jsnell|3 years ago|reply
What's the purpose of your math?

They're a public company. If you want to know how much they spend, just check their quarterly financial reports. It'll be far more accurate than these guesses.

[+] danielvf|3 years ago|reply
If we follow the assumption that he is responsible for this stock movement, then he made 8 million dollars today and yet made investors 27,000 million dollars - creating 3,300x more value than captured.
[+] khazhoux|3 years ago|reply
You're mixing issues, though. He (and other CEOs, and other execs) will make a shit-load of money for very little "hard work" every day of the week, even while making bad or terrible decisions. There was nothing ever "fair" about exec compensation, if that's what you ever hoped to find.
[+] LewisVerstappen|3 years ago|reply
The world doesn’t pay anyone based off “hard work”?

Do you think programmers who sit in a chair all day deserve to be paid 5x what a coalminer makes?

[+] wereallterrrist|3 years ago|reply
It's really something to watch people struggle to shrug off the cognitive dissonance and just... realize some things that some others have been preaching for a while, that's all I'll say.

Maybe 2022's unexpected doses of increased class consciousness is going to extend in 2023. (Of course it is, post-pandemic trends only show signs of increasing, strap in!)

[+] arcticbunny|3 years ago|reply
Very little hard work? Are you a CEO or ever ran a company? It’s not easy
[+] gernb|3 years ago|reply
CEOs general work harder than workers. They're on 24/7. I don't think I'd ever want to be a CEO of a company as big as Google. They have to deal with 100s of teams as well as 100s of outside companies, governments, etc, all over the world. I really doubt they have it "easy"
[+] kypro|3 years ago|reply
GOOG employees also made a crap ton too as GOOG's stock based comp is very generous.
[+] metadat|3 years ago|reply
Has Google transitioned away from stock units to dollar amounts yet?
[+] metadat|3 years ago|reply
They are unrealized gains, but yeah, his net worth increased 20,000x more than the average comfortable SV tech worker today.

This is $666.666 repeating USD per person laid off from $GOOG. Make of that what you will.

Seems like a lot.

[+] kaczordon|3 years ago|reply
Percentage wise it was the same though.
[+] JimtheCoder|3 years ago|reply
Am I the only one surprised that he only owns 1.76m shares?

I assumed it would be more...

[+] tinktank|3 years ago|reply
More, after taxes than most people will make pre-tax in a lifetime. What a time to be a CEO.
[+] khazhoux|3 years ago|reply
I'm a random non-executive employee at a company you've heard of in Silicon Valley, and I made... (checks Stocks app)... more today than my brother in the midwest will make all year.

What a time to be in tech.

[+] fxd123|3 years ago|reply
Yeah. Most people are not CEOs of multi-billion multinational corporations. Shocker!
[+] numinary1|3 years ago|reply
Large companies’ CEOs need to be wealthy in order to be in the club with others whose influence might matter. Wealth == Power.
[+] fxd123|3 years ago|reply
Just as it has always been, and always will be. This comment is not as deep as you think