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Googlers angry about CEO’s $226M pay after cuts in perks and 12,000 layoffs
- browningstreet 3y agoAnd a bunch of us were making fun of him recently in the 60 Minutes / AI thread... (me included)
- amir734jj 3y agoIs $225M a lot for CEO of big corporation? I genuinely don't know. What is the average pay?
- epolanski 3y agoIt's a lot obviously.
- 542458 3y agoAP says average for large orgs is about 12 million. https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-financial-markets-us-news-ap-top-news-pandemics-13827540beb28669fa7847de43b52ac4 https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-financial-markets-...
- LesZedCB 3y agoTim Apple - 99M [1] Satya Nadella - 54M [2] [1] https://www1.salary.com/Tim-Cook-Salary-Bonus-Stock-Options-for-apple-inc.html https://www1.salary.com/Tim-Cook-Salary-Bonus-Stock-Options-... [2] https://www1.salary.com/Satya-Nadella-Salary-Bonus-Stock-Options-for-microsoft-corp.html https://www1.salary.com/Satya-Nadella-Salary-Bonus-Stock-Opt...
- zapdrive 3y agoLol @ Tim Apple. For those who don't know, Trump called Tim Cook "Tim Apple" in a conference once.
- pcurve 3y agoit's a lot. Here's top 100. https://www.equilar.com/reports/90-table-highest-paid-ceos-2022-equilar-100.html https://www.equilar.com/reports/90-table-highest-paid-ceos-2... Pichai is not on the list because he gets paid big every 3 years I think. It's not a good look either way.
- rudyfink 3y agoIt is more than the profit (as listed by Fortune) of about 260 companies in the Fortune 1000: https://fortune.com/ranking/fortune500/2022/search/ https://fortune.com/ranking/fortune500/2022/search/ . In other words, Fortune lists about 260 companies in the Fortune 1000 as having a profit of less than 225 million in 2022.
- pcurve 3y agosimilar thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35809807 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35809807
- zoiksmeboiks 3y agoAmazing how much failing to keep up with competitors, evolve core business will get you. How much of Google’s valuation is Sundar, how much is inflation of asset values to keep asset owners ahead of everyone else, how much is a decade of cheap money?
- jimsimmons 3y agoHating capitalism is one thing. Being clueless how it works is childish. 200M over 3 years for the CEO of the most consequential tech company on the planet is peanuts. Pop artists make similar money scantily clad and squeezing autotune
- airstrike 3y agoThat's whataboutism. Googlers are comparing their pay (and layoffs) to the CEO's comp--pop artists are an entirely separate matter and Googlers may also feel those are paid too much Said differently: I'm not saying they're right or wrong, just pointing out that they can also be upset over pop artists' pay
- jimsimmons 3y agoOpenAI is allegedly paying 5-20M for researchers. Shouldn’t CEO deserve 20x more? What motivation will Sundar have if you pay him 200K?
- nemothekid 3y agoSundar is make 3x more than Satya while doing fuck-all and coasting in his tenure.
- belval 3y agoIt's still extreme. I have no doubt that he works extremely hard but what are shareholders getting for a 226M$ compensation instead of a 100M$ one?
- airstrike 3y agoThe question isn't about motivation and you're comparing $5-20M to $0.2M when the argument is $200M is too much The balanced answer then is to pay a CEO {something closer to $20M} and he will be motivated by {something closer to $20M} (plus their expectations of future comp). Whether that's $20M or $40M or $60M or more is up for debate. Googlers are saying: "It's not $226M"
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- gregdoesit 3y agoGot to give it to Larry Page and Sergey Brin for having their cake and also eating it. They control ~51% of voting power with shares thanks to owning ~85% of class B shares. They have had the benefit of someone else running the company for 8 years - and increasing the value of it - and now, when things are not looking great, it’s Sundar Pichai who gets the blame, and the focus on his compensation: and not those who set/approved this compensation. The biggest winners of Pichai’s leadership have objectively been the shareholders: Google’s market cap increased by ~$890B since he took over as CEO in 2015, tripling the market cap/stock price of the company. Larry and Sergey run this show: they simply hired someone else to do it for them. When things go well: they profit. When not so well - like now - someone else is on the hook and is the person criticised for how things go at Google; and it’s not them.
- lannisterstark 3y ago>it’s Sundar Pichai who gets the blame Unpopular opinion, but he should. Google has pretty much been uninventing cesspool since he became the CEO. The only thing that are up are profits.
- justrealist 3y agoNot sure I'm following. They aren't getting new equity grants, they're de-facto out of the picture and just riding the valuation. They have 51% voting power but it's not obvious they are actively making decisions, rather than just holding onto power in just-in-case. Sundar is getting new equity grants based on his "performance". That's not the same.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 3y agoLarry and Sergey hired Sundar to do a job (make money for shareholders aka Larry and Sergey). If Sundar doesn’t want to do that job anymore they’ll find someone else to do it better. If I’m ignoring morality and just pretending I own the company and want to be richer, my opinion would be: if I think there is someone out there who will do a better job than my CEO and they are available, hire them no matter how much it costs. Whatever I’m paying them is peanuts compared to their impact on the company’s market cap. Nowhere in my option space is “keep the same sub-par CEO but pay them less”, that’s penny-wise and pound-foolish thinking.
- mkl95 3y agoI have mostly worked for companies whose ARR is 5-10% of this guy's pay. And their CEOs usually have a bigger ego!
- segasaturn 3y agoWhile I agree that CEOs are overpayed, I think the same applies to software engineers. Software Engineering has been a pay/perk bubble for years that was due for a correction, and like when Elon cut the free gourmet lunches and coffees for Twitter staff, I'm sure the Google engineers will survive. Meanwhile Google's "raters", the army of workers who do the hard work of moderating and testing Google's platforms are getting paid crumbs in comparison: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/25/1166059832/googles-ghost-workers-are-asking-for-labor-rights https://www.npr.org/2023/03/25/1166059832/googles-ghost-work...
- comprev 3y agoI disagree about being overpaid. Similar to other professions - engineering and medicine for example - we have a career which requires a dedication to constant learning. We build systems which allow companies to generate billions in revenue and deserve a slice of the pie.
- InCityDreams 3y ago>and deserve a slice of the pie. ...and deserve a fair slice of the pie.
- ksaun 3y agoI wish these companies would generate fewer billions in revenue, choosing to make their businesses more beneficial to society as a whole instead of apparently focusing on maximizing profit. It seems like all parties involved could still be quite adequately compensated. Unfortunately (in my opinion), that's not how it is. Given our reality, I think I agree with you that SWEs do deserve that slice of that pie. But I very much wish that more people placed greater priority on benefiting others/society instead.
- Mistletoe 3y agoBut you have much lower education and time costs, no? >In all, it takes about eight to ten years to become a professional engineer, depending on whether you decide to get a master's degree. >Doctors must complete a four-year undergraduate program, along with four years in medical school and three to seven years in a residency program to learn the specialty they chose to pursue. In other words, it takes between 10 to 14 years to become a fully licensed doctor.
- armitron 3y agoPichai needs to go, Google is in dire need of someone that can shake things up.
- GJR 3y agoWhat is the actual point of giving anyone $226m in pay? How would that motivate them to deliver any more..? Ratio of CEO:staff pay at 1000:1!
- easytiger 3y agoWhy does Buffett get up and go to work in the morning?
- zymhan 3y agoCertainly not because he needs to work for a living, or for anything at all.
- jason0597 3y agoCertainly not for money, he lives in a simple house and drives a simple car. Probably because he just likes his job
- ta1243 3y agoWhy would someone work for $250m but not work for $150m? Or at that level of wealth work for free. Surely it's just for keeping score
- easytiger 3y agoMr Buffett is 92 years old and works every day and is worth approx $120 billion. In the past 70 years hes had more money than needed for him to decide to give it all up. Why hasn't he?
- staticman2 3y agoWhy are you asking this question? Is it rhetorical, and if so, what point do you feel you are making?
- easytiger 3y ago
- dataangel 3y agoSo if they paid him 0$ they could have kept 500-1,000 out of those 12,000 employees? And that's assuming none of his pay was redistributed to any of the employees they kept. That's the thing with these gigantic numbers, they always look really impressive, but when you divide them by the actual number of employees involved it's not a huge per-employee benefit. Not saying it's fair, just that if you stare starry eyed at the number thinking cutting out the top would make a huge difference in you're life, you're mistaken.
- scarface74 3y agoSeeing that Google has failed at every single initiative outside of ads, employees aren’t what they need. They need a vision.
- doctor_eval 3y agoAs I get older and (hopefully) wiser, I’ve come to the conclusion that vision is about 50% of success, and getting that vision to market - execution - is the other 50%. The moment you lose the vision or drop the ball, you’re doomed.
- kenjackson 3y agoWere you trying to say 500-1000 of the employees isn't a huge number?
- ghostpepper 3y agoIt's roughly 4%. I would not call 4% of anything huge.
- Freedom2 3y agoConsensus is that a 4% APR on a savings account is huge...
- kenjackson 3y agoThat's just an absurd statement. If there was a new airline that said, "Only 4% of our flights end in crashes" -- I think you'd avoid it at all costs. Another way to look at his pay -- is he worth 4X what Satya is? Is he having 4X the positive impact at Google as what Satya is at Microsoft? Or another way to put it, what if you ONLY paid him $50M and kept 400 engineers (assuming they weren't laying off underperformers) -- would they be better off?
- lancesells 3y agoI said this in another thread complaining about Pichai: Google 2019 Net Income - $36B 2022 Net Income - $60B If was part of the workforce I would be even more pissed just at the company itself. Laying off 12k and cuts in perks after $60B in net income.
- easytiger 3y agoSignificant portions of companies like google are parallel structures unrelated to revenue and body shops piled high to buy localised political influence.
- roflyear 3y agoAlso, layoffs fight inflation which fights higher rates. Low rates would mean amazing things for tech stocks.
- CobrastanJorji 3y agoAh, but Google announced a $70B stock buyback, so in a sense, isn't that a net loss of $10B, requiring belt tightening and layoffs?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> was part of the workforce I would be even more pissed just at the company itself. Laying off 12k and cuts in perks after $60B in net income. This cuts both ways. How many of those laid off had any connection to that profit?
- justsocrateasin 3y agoI don't think this is a good argument. Just because you are at a cost center/not at a profit center doesn't mean you don't have any connection to the profit. Take HR. Total cost center. By this logic they shouldn't get any piece of the pie. But in reality, without *good* HR, a company can be a shitty place to work. HR is just one example. Many others out there.
- martyvis 3y agoTwo words. Tone deaf.
- 0zemp2c 3y agoGooglers: if you don't like how Google works, vote with your feet you'll never own enough shares to get on the mic at an annual meeting, leaving is your only recourse
- lvl102 3y agoIn comparison, Nadella is a bit above $50M which is gross underpay considering how Ballmer left the company. Nadella has been the best CEO in the past decade. In fact, you could argue that he’s the best investment manager in the past decade since MSFT is now a giant technology conglomerate. Better than Berkshire.
- strikelaserclaw 3y agoNadella is the scottie pippen of tech ceos.
- roflyear 3y agoWell the 226m vests over 3 years. So it's not so bad.
- endisneigh 3y agoSuch hyperbole. Apple is superior in every financial metric. I don’t know how anyone can say this with a straight face while apple exists.
- lvl102 3y agoWhat did Tim actually accomplish though? He’s there to essentially “keep” what Apple already established under Steve Jobs. Nadella made some big decisions to completely remake Microsoft. By the way, return (not including dividends) is about the same between AAPL and MSFT since Nadella took over on February 2014 which is simply amazing if you think about the differences between the two companies.
- eric-hu 3y agoI’ll credit Tim with giving Jony the boot and getting MagSafe back on my Mac.
- endisneigh 3y agoWhy downplay Tim Cook? If it is so obvious what to do why isn’t Microsoft a bigger company? Why make disruptive changes? Stay the course and refine. That’s apple, and that’s why they’re the biggest. That’s also why they didn’t foolishly overhire and why layoffs were not necessary for them. And finally, why wouldn’t include dividends? SMH
- falcolas 3y agoGoogle’s board has spoken, and the price of their stock today matters more than the company’s future. If I was an employee who cared about Google’s vision, or what other services they could offer the world, the I’d probably be angry at the squandered opportunity too.
- ebiester 3y agoIf they were angry enough, they’d unionize.
- aeyes 3y agoA union doesn't protect against layoffs.
- darth_avocado 3y agoIt does.
- next_xibalba 3y agoGoogle is acting rationally. The products produced by these massively compensated employees in their 10s of thousands have failed to meaningfully add value beyond Search. Other Bets, X, Brain, DeepMind, etc, etc. All have failed over the last 20 years. Just good money after bad. So, the rational thing to do is cut costs and harvest profits. How many product managers, marketers, TPMs, DEI personnel, and layers and layers of directors and VPs does Google need to keep Search cranking? Answer: far, far fewer.
- adrr 3y agoDo you think the failure was tactical failures or strategic failures? Other companies seem to bring new categories of business with success. Why could Microsoft launch a game platform and be successful but google couldn’t? Why is an e-commerce company leading cloud computing?
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- TrevorFSmith 3y ago"It's almost like they care more about shareholders than Googlers." The C-suite works for the board and the major shareholders. They'll immediately throw workers under the bus if told to do so. That's their job. They'll be fired if they don't. They knew it from day one.
- tomlockwood 3y agoUnionise.
- electriclove 3y agoI disagree about putting all these things together. The layoffs and reduction in perks were sorely needed in Big Tech given all the fat that has been milking it for years. The CEO pay is definitely egregious and should be called out (and those at other companies should also be called out).
- oneng 3y agoGoogle doesn't even respect it's shareholders, only the people who get awarded shares. Most of the share buybacks go to preventing the newly minted shares from dropping the stock price. Apple does actually respect it's shareholders...probably because it's hard to hoodwink Berkshire Hathaway. https://www.epsilontheory.com/stock-buybacks-and-the-monetization-of-stock-based-compensation/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/stock-buybacks-and-the-monetiz...
- hayst4ck 3y agoYou can be as angry as you want, but anger isn't going to do anything. They can "fuck around and find out" all they want because they know that they are so powerful they will never have to find out. They know they'll never have to face a tech union or deal with laborers sitting at the big boys negotiating table.
- m3kw9 3y agoHe was promised this pay in his contract just like the employees contract where they signed it.
- mkoubaa 3y agoAs an employee of a publically traded software company, I can never understand why people feel entitled to their job. I sell my time to my employer and either party can back out of that transaction
- lakecresva 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoPosting like this will get you banned on HN, regardless of how simple someone's mind is you feel it is. Please don't do it again. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- the_only_law 3y agoSurprisingly common on here. or perhaps not so surprisingly…
- xiphias2 3y agoMany people (including me) left their home country, family and lot of times their possible dating life with a person who speaks their own language to be able to work at Google. For me it wasn't just about salary, but I really believed in the vision Eric Schmidt was selling (don't be evil). Since then Google is just going down in morals and renegged on its own promises.
- xtracto 3y agoI'm sorry you did. 20 years ago when I was young and naive I was very strong in ideologies too. In my case it was Linux and open source. I defended it blindly for a time. As I've grown up, now at 40 I understand more things about the world. In the case of private companies, I learned long ago not to get enamoured with them. Unless I am the owner, I work only for my paycheck. I've been in great companies, and some of them have paid me dearly. And I will always do my best for what I am paid. But long gone are my days of pushing myself even sacrificing my health, family relationships and personal wellbeing for a company. In the end, they can and will fire me tomorrow if it improves the bottom line.
- toastercat 3y agoI wonder what it's like being rich. :thinking emoji:
- tasuki 3y agoBeing rich, you can buy more and bigger things. You don't have to. Rich people still have health problems, interpersonal problems, and also: everyone wants their money. Source: I have some rich friends.
- v1l 3y agoIt's funny to me that no one complained about Sundar's pay when things were going swimmingly well.
- serf 3y agowhy is that funny at all? It didn't coincide with layoffs at that time. One of the first things that someone that gets laid off tries to do is understand the reasons for the conditions that prompted the lay-off. One could -- somewhat reasonably -- divide the number of yearly salaries into 226 million and become quite outraged. Is a single CEO worth that many jobs? That's the true question that creates outrage, not whether or not he was paid well. If the jobs were never at stake the outrage would not exist. I explain this without any outrage myself in this matter; a contractual payout has little to do with whatever current employment climate may exist -- but I can understand where the outrage originates.
- v1l 3y ago> Is a single CEO worth that many jobs? This question is a sign of not understanding how business works.
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- jmyeet 3y agoWe have a tendency to think that things that are otherwise pretty universal don't apply to us. This results in people have very individualistic philosophies. Mantras like "work hard" place responsibility on the individual. Google is a money printing machine having net annual income of ~$60B? It's profit per employee is utterly insane. Yet despite that there was a "need" for layoffs. You'll find no shortage of defenders for the layoffs. Talk of cutting "the fat". Tell me: who decides what most of these people work on? Is it the individual? Or leadership? How amny executive leaders have gone as a result of need for belt-tightening? And whatever you think of Sunday (personally: not a lot), what makes this one man worth $226M/year? Sending out the traditional "thoughts and prayers" and "full responsibility" email seems to have not hurt him in the slightest. These layoffs are nothin gmore than an attack on labor costs. It makes the remaining employees work harder (fearing further layoffs) as job functions of those eliminated are added to them rather than backfilled, less likely to ask for or get raises and it will make hiring cheaper as there is more avilable labor. Just like the Steve Jobs anti-poaching collusion, this is a coordinated effort. Despite efforts to appear otherwise, these tech companies aren't on your side. They're on the shareholders side. You are simply an unfortunate line item under "expenses". So at least people are learning the lesson that they are completely expendable and there is no loyalty so absolutely no loyalty should be given to the company. Loyalty has to be reciprocal. It actually doesn't have to be this way [1]. Additionally, layoffs tend to be traumatic for both the people affected and those that remain. Cost savings are overstated once you factor in severance packages, possible litigation, psychic damage to remaining employees and the cultural loss of trust from the "distraction". Any genuine need to reduce costs could be better handled by across the board pay cuts. [1]: https://www.polygon.com/2013/7/5/4496512/why-nintendos-satoru-iwata-refuses-to-lay-off-staff https://www.polygon.com/2013/7/5/4496512/why-nintendos-sator...
- crazygringo 3y agoThe $226M is over the next 3 years, so it's approximately $75M/yr. For comparison, this is a decrease from his last grant of $281M in 2019, or $94M/yr. It's a 20% cut in salary for the next three years in a row. For comparison, Tim Cook made $99M in 2022, and was cut to $49M "target compensation" in 2023 (but he can actually make more, e.g. his 2022 wound up 18% higher than target), and the following 2 years remain to be decided. So sure Googlers can be angry, but it seems like the message is getting lost that this is compensation for 3 years (not 1) and a meaningful decrease (not increase). It could well wind up being an even bigger decrease than Tim Cook's over the next 3 years, yet Tim is getting praise for taking a cut while people are angry at Sundar? Seems like the real problem might be that Google makes 3-year CEO grants that people then totally misunderstand.
- santoshalper 3y agoWhat a genuinely vulgar comp package.
- drewcon 3y agoCEO pay is a market rate. This is not much different than complaining about the price point of gas, or milk, or eggs. You can describe it as being too high in your opinion, or not worth it in your opinion, but that's completely different than pretending that its not being set by the market (and approved by the board) weighing myriad inputs. And btw, one of those inputs is...the ability to successfully tighten the belt and restructure costs to hit numbers. Make the case to fire Pichai if you want, I'm fine with that, but recognize that you're going to pay "replacement cost" at the same rate or higher for someone else. That's showbiz baby.
- dontreact 3y agoyou're going to pay "replacement cost"at the same rate or higher for someone else How do you know this is true? This is an assertion you are making, but the evidence is to the contrary given significantly lower compensation for Microsoft or Apple's CEO.
- monero-xmr 3y agoVery unpopular opinion sadly. The most common argument I’ve heard is, “Just hire me! I’d do it for way less!” As if running a company employing ~150k people into the ground to make a quick buck is morally better than letting a hyper-competent professional run the operation and make “too much” money.
- nostromo 3y agoHe is paid significantly more than better-performing CEOs like Cook and Nadella.
- drewcon 3y agoSeems like they’re underpaid :)
- mensetmanusman 3y agoImagine making a million a week. /brain explodes
- tasuki 3y agoAnd for some, imagining $150k a year makes their brain explode. Also imagine many people on the internet hating on you. I'm not at all sure that's worth a million a week.
- Invictus0 3y agoPeople need to get over themselves. You're not entitled to a job.
- dahwolf 3y agoTech workers better hope that rate hikes stop soon, otherwise CEOs might take Musk as inspiration. Almost everybody agrees that his actions are extreme and often stupendous. But that's not the point. The point is that he fired 80% and Twitter is still operational. Also, Twitter 5 times smaller than before seems to fairly rapidly change/add features, whilst old Twitter never shipped anything. Nobody should adapt these crazy tactics, but it's an (extreme) demonstration of fluff and discovering core value. You don't have to go Musk mode, but Musk demonstrated the effect of a decimation of the work force. That suggests to CEOs that one might go half-Musk mode. There's a lot of room to cut when you previously hired entire villages each year. Not 80%. But 30%? Why not. 40%? Maybe. Consider Facebook's "year of optimization". They hired so many people that it takes them a year to figure our what all these people are even doing. What you have normalized as "normal times" were in fact dot com boom times.
- yieldcrv 3y agoIf you work hard, put all your hours in, and strive for excellence, he’ll get another island next year
- recursivequine 3y agoAs a googler, I believe that googlers should be paid top of market. I love to see my fellow Sundar getting bank