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Sundar Pichai received $226M compensation, boosted by a triennial stock grant

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21–30 of 543 posts

Re: Sundar Pichai received $226M compensation, boosted by a triennial stock grant

#21

... And getting caught flat-footed against Microsoft (and Adobe, but but not as loudly) in the precise field Alphabet is supposedly the insurmountable leader. Remind me again how big-co CEOs assume "all the risk"?

> Remind me again how big-co CEOs assume "all the risk"? Does anyone seriously believe this? I see it all the time as a "comeback" against CEOs, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone arguing that they actually are the ones that assume all the risk.

Is this a serious question? Pichai will not experience hardship in any circumstance. His access to a roof, food, healthcare, quality of life, etc. are not in danger, now or in the future. The worst possible outcome for him still leaves many more zeroes in his personal finances than the vast majority of employees will ever see at any point in their life.

Re: Sundar Pichai received $226M compensation, boosted by a triennial stock grant

#22
post #2

Someone please call Ja Rule so he can make sense of this man’s salary…

This sounds like a comment on reddit

As if typical HN comments were any better than typical reddit comments...

Re: Sundar Pichai received $226M compensation, boosted by a triennial stock grant

#23

... And getting caught flat-footed against Microsoft (and Adobe, but but not as loudly) in the precise field Alphabet is supposedly the insurmountable leader. Remind me again how big-co CEOs assume "all the risk"?

Reputational risk does affect the supply of viable CEO candidates (here we are deriding Pichai for perceived Google failures), but it’s far from the only factor. The main reason CEO total comp is so high in big companies is to align the CEO with the interests of shareholders. Something the layoffs with likely also aligned with.

Re: Sundar Pichai received $226M compensation, boosted by a triennial stock grant

#24

... And getting caught flat-footed against Microsoft (and Adobe, but but not as loudly) in the precise field Alphabet is supposedly the insurmountable leader. Remind me again how big-co CEOs assume "all the risk"?

> Remind me again how big-co CEOs assume "all the risk"? Does anyone seriously believe this? I see it all the time as a "comeback" against CEOs, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone arguing that they actually are the ones that assume all the risk.

Straw man

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Re: Sundar Pichai received $226M compensation, boosted by a triennial stock grant

#25
post #13

Under metrics of revenue and profit there is no reason to change the CEO: Annual Revenue of Google from 2002 to 2022: https://www.statista.com/statistics/266206/googles-annual-gl... Annual Net Income Generated by Google from 2001 to 2015: https://www.statista.com/statistics/266472/googles-net-incom... Under metrics of leadership and fending competition there is no reason to keep the CEO: "Killed by Google" - https://…

Moreover, Bing, ChatGPT hasn't even made a dent in Google's search engine market share [0].

[0] https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share

Re: Sundar Pichai received $226M compensation, boosted by a triennial stock grant

#26

... And getting caught flat-footed against Microsoft (and Adobe, but but not as loudly) in the precise field Alphabet is supposedly the insurmountable leader. Remind me again how big-co CEOs assume "all the risk"?

What's even the risk?

If the CEO of Google gets fired, he just ends up as the CEO of another Fortune 500 company.

If he can't even land that role, he can just go around pocketing $50k/event speaking fee. Of course, that's only if he doesn't want to degrade himself by taking on a VP-level role at another Fortune 500 company.

Re: Sundar Pichai received $226M compensation, boosted by a triennial stock grant

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a comment on reddit

As if typical HN comments were any better than typical reddit comments...

In many subreddits the comments have surpassed stupidity I see here years ago.

Re: Sundar Pichai received $226M compensation, boosted by a triennial stock grant

#29
post #20
post #18

CEO received compensation for good cost-cutting measures? What am I missing here?

CEO made bad decisions that many other companies avoided. CEO panicked and fired thousands unprofessionally. CEO received record compensation.

CEOs serve the board and the board serves the shareholders.

Employees are irrelevant in this scenario, replaceable units whose purpose is to produce.

Are either of the two relevant parties mad at the CEO?

If you want employees to matter beyond the cold calculus of dollars per beating heart per quarter, Alphabet ain't inside that kinda system.

Unions could help (because they explicitly acknowledge the $ per soul metric and seek to exploit it for the souls' benefit) but the U-word is a bad word to libertarian techbros.

Re: Sundar Pichai received $226M compensation, boosted by a triennial stock grant

#30
post #20
post #18

CEO received compensation for good cost-cutting measures? What am I missing here?

CEO made bad decisions that many other companies avoided. CEO panicked and fired thousands unprofessionally. CEO received record compensation.

Tons of tech companies were firing employees in 2022, so much so Apple was far and wide an exception in just keeping the same numbers. Feels more like an economic cycle / preparing for the worse rather than result of bad decisions on behalf of Pichai. And yes - firing employees to protect the efficiency of the company is (an unpopular) part of a CEOs job.
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