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

bloomberg.com

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

#171

Post by goosedragons »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #150
counttheforks wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guy has made 226M in a year. He won't have to work another day in his life. What reputational risk are you talking about?

The risk is that all google failures, whether simply perceived or real, are publicly attributed to him. This is real and is one of many factors that influences the willingness of qualified candidates to seek CEO roles in the first place, let alone of very large, very well known companies. But it is certainly not the only factor, and it’s not even a very significant factor in most cases, when it comes to determining C…

It's a good thing he made over 50 lifetimes of income in a single year then.

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

#172

Post by hammyhavoc »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #161
hammyhavoc wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest, the trust from these demographics towards Google wasn't great even prior and hadn't been for a while.

Google was previously known for being engineering-oriented and was respected for that by the developers. Now it seems that all it is known for is empire-building, dropping products, and features for the sake of features.

Yup. But this was a problem even prior to the current CEO. It's an established culture.

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

#173

Post by ulfw »

j7ake wrote: post #95
passwordoops wrote: post #5

... 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"?

Their compensation doesn’t come from assuming more risk. They are essentially celebrities with a personal brand that corporations will hire to have the celebrity’s name as head the org. A good celebrity can bring fresh energy and new atmosphere to an organisation. It’s unclear whether the average CEO is worth their compensation, but what is clear is that bad leadership can tank an organisation to zero.

In what world was Pichai Sundararajan a celebrity? Before Google surely not and now you'd say he is one BECAUSE of the CEO job or?

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

#174

Post by serf »

cebert wrote: post #166
ulfw wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 226 MILLION dollars I bet my ass a ton of VERY SMART people would want that job. Many many many.

Being the smartest person in the room doesn’t necessarily mean than they’re a great leader.

right , but neither does being appointed CEO.

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

#175

Post by belltaco »

gsatic wrote: post #142
andrewstuart wrote: post #59

I simply don’t see what good this CEO has done. He’s destroyed googles reputation with developers. Destroyed customer trust in Google products. Done nothing to fix googles reputation for terrible customer service. Led Google to third place in cloud computing. AND been thrashed by Microsoft / ChatGPT, putting Googles core business at risk. Why is this guy CEO?

Mainly cause no one smart wants that job. It's just mindless politics 24*7. It's left to the mindlessly ambitious or ppl who are placeholders to prevent the mindlessly ambitious from sitting in the chair. We have passed the point of org complexity where the CEO does anything beyond ensuring no on totally insane takes over. There are lot of such ppl who dieing to charge you for every search query or email you send. Th…

> We have passed the point of org complexity where the CEO does anything beyond ensuring no on totally insane takes over.

I think Satya Nadella is a counter example.

There can be 'mindlessly' ambitious people who are also great at being a CEO.

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

#176

Post by danaris »

rco8786 wrote: post #72
passwordoops wrote: post #5

... 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"? I have never once heard anyone make this claim.

It's a claim repeated very frequently around here when people criticize exorbitant compensation packages for execs.

For instance, see [0] below by fallingknife.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35665329

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

#177

Post by Xelbair »

bmcquade wrote: post #153
andrewstuart wrote: post #59

I simply don’t see what good this CEO has done. He’s destroyed googles reputation with developers. Destroyed customer trust in Google products. Done nothing to fix googles reputation for terrible customer service. Led Google to third place in cloud computing. AND been thrashed by Microsoft / ChatGPT, putting Googles core business at risk. Why is this guy CEO?

Sundar became CEO at a time when Google needed a leader who could build consensus across different product areas. Sundar was the right person for this role. Unfortunately Sundar is also relatively weak at setting a bold vision to ensure the company continues to grow and innovate, as Larry had done. So under Sundar the company has slowly shifted from being innovative to being very risk averse, incentivising not making…

so to paraphrase, he is a bean counter.

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

#178

Post by jemmyw »

kubb wrote: post #112
0xDEF wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am from Denmark where we have strong unions protecting our working class and lower middle class. That is a good thing. However what is the benefit of ultra high income FAANG employees unionizing?

Good for you that you're from Denmark. It seems like an amazing country that I would love to visit and spend some time or even live in, but I'm afraid I couldn't fall in love with the language. Unions can ensure that the employees get a fair share of the revenue in proportion to the upper mgmt. They also can remove artificial promotion hurdles, that at Google happens according to destructive internal dynamics. Such d…

> Good for you that you're from Denmark. It seems like an amazing country that I would love to visit and spend some time or even live in, but I'm afraid I couldn't fall in love with the language.

Live in Copenhagen and you can more than get by without knowing the language, although obviously you start picking up some functional words.

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

#179

Post by kubb »

chaostheory wrote: post #104
kubb wrote: post #64

The upper management at Google are so lucky that the company is filled with timid people who are averse to change and didn't unionize. Now they can safely siphon the profits for another several years until they inevitably drive the company into the ground when the ad revenue dries up, and they move to similar positions at other places with healthy revenue streams. And the rank-and-file Googlers will defend this becau…

You don’t have the full picture. You’re missing a lot of data > And the rank-and-file Googlers will defend this because they think they caught God by the ankles with their 150k/year salary That’s closer to their intern salaries. Total comp is more like double or more Much of the rank and file’s total compensation is also in stock Add to that if you wanted to, you can do the minimum and just coast. No one is going to…

> Maybe you shouldn’t comment on something you know barely anything about?

Very weak counterpoint, essentially ad personam, trying to insinuate my ignorance, telling me to shut up. Not impressive.

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

#180

Post by ystad »

safety1st wrote: post #143
rqtwteye wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are making tons of money. That’s what counts. Same for Ballmer at MS. Maybe they lost their magic but they were printing money.

Over the past 4 years, GOOG's net income and earnings per share have fallen quite a bit. Revenue has been pretty flat. I don't get why Pichai is so well paid. Ballmer actually did preside over some impressive growth when he was CEO of MSFT. Pichai has not. Edit: I was looking at the wrong numbers. Google's profit has roughly quadrupled in the 8 years Pichai has been CEO. His compensation makes a lot more sense in tha…

Ballmer made bets on the windows phone, Zune, Bing (ads) etc in a bid to strengthen the moat around windows/Office. Most of these bets didn't pay, the strategy to build stuff to protect your core business does stymie company growth. I think Google has gotten itself into a similar position that Microsoft was in circa 2012.
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