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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

#531

Post by polygamous_bat »

chaostheory wrote: post #519
polygamous_bat wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are you even trying to say? Shares generally give you two benefits, one is a share of the up/downsides, and another is a right of governance in the company. The way employee share distributions are done right now means employees get a tiny fraction of the first and none of the second, even though they are a large stakeholder in the company's future.

This is a moot point if you understand how capitalism works and the goal of corporate executives: ensuring maximum value for shareholders. As I’ve mentioned before, Google employees own a large amount of stock compare to the average person. Consequently, they will benefit no matter what

> This is a moot point if you understand how capitalism works and the goal of corporate executives: ensuring maximum value for shareholders.

Yes, and the goal of communism is to "share the resources and maximize everybody's potential", wonderful if you are incredibly naive and believe that these systems always do exactly what it says on the sticker, and just an empty platitude if you've lived at least two days in the real world.

Here's an example [1] of pro capitalists fucking over 49% of the shareholders to favor 51% of them, and you can find plenty more examples of you look through recent financial news. So tell me once again how being a 1e-7th shareholder of a trillion dollar tech company is guaranteed to "benefit you no matter what"?

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-02/merger...

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

#532

Post by hnfong »

rcme wrote: post #463
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many, many people in the software industry, especially at a place like Google, absolutely do not want to unionize, and for excellent reasons. Pretty much every union in existence assigns value to union members based on tenure, and it pretty much assumes members are "interchangeable cogs" in most other respects. A lot of people reasonably hate that idea, because they know that they can negotiate for more based on thei…

I understand this argument, and there are definitely many Google engineers who believe this, but I believe this belief to be mistaken. Unfortunately, most engineers really are replaceable cogs. Google’s origins can be traced back to really smart people innovating through brilliant new algorithms. So it’s understandable why people at Google believe that being brilliant is an irreplaceable asset. If only enough Jeff De…

> 99% of product work really can be done by anyone.

LOL

It's true that raw technical brilliance doesn't automatically translate to good products, but it's painfully obvious with Google's non-ability to create compelling products in recent years that product work can't be done by just anyone...

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

#533

Post by hnfong »

chaostheory wrote: post #482
rcme wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course the stock goes up. But the employees are an extreme minority shareholder, so they're totally beholden to the larger shareholders. If the company wants to layoff workers, they're powerless to stop it. Workers are also powerless to stop getting their pay cut. Go look at current job openings. Those cushy 500K total comp jobs are gone.

Rank and file employees owning hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars of shares is not unheard of in companies like Google. It’s obvious that you havent worked in the tech industry because you really don’t know what you’re talking about.

""" As of 31 December 2021, Larry Page and Sergey Brin owned 85.9% of the company’s Class B shares meaning that they controlled approximately 51.4% of the company’s voting power. """

I have no idea what you guys (esp sibling comment) are arguing about. Larry and Sergey control the company and no other shareholders, no matter how many millions of shares they hold, would be able to block a decision that Larry and Sergey approved of.

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

#534

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

__pache__ wrote: post #530
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How old were those police officers when they retired?

Usually late 40s. 20yrs gets you 50% of your salary for the rest of your life on top of whatever else you saved. 3% more every year you stay on. The guy I met hunting was in his 50s and has 30+ years in the force. He's getting like 70k/yr lol Same with my highschool gf's dad.

Gosh, I should have become a police officer!

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

#535

Post by throwaway173738 »

riceart wrote: post #319
throwaway173738 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on how you define the boat. I think you can argue that in both cases continued servitude is the only way either of them can get food and a place to sleep indoors. There’s a big gulf of experience beyond that. But you can only form a coalition with someone on the basis of common ground. So while you’re both right, it’s not going to help either the cleaner or the engineer get better treatment if they don’t a…

> I think you can argue that in both cases continued servitude is the only way either of them can get food and a place to sleep indoors. No you can’t argue that because it’s stupid. A typical google software engineer will have made enough that in their early 30s they can quit/retire and live the rest of their life at at least the same standard of living as that cleaning lady (almost none of them find that an acceptab…

So what do you want then, a world where the engineer has the same standard of living as the cleaner or where the cleaner has the same standard of living as the engineer?

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

#536

Post by chaostheory »

hnfong wrote: post #533
chaostheory wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rank and file employees owning hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars of shares is not unheard of in companies like Google. It’s obvious that you havent worked in the tech industry because you really don’t know what you’re talking about.

""" As of 31 December 2021, Larry Page and Sergey Brin owned 85.9% of the company’s Class B shares meaning that they controlled approximately 51.4% of the company’s voting power. """ I have no idea what you guys (esp sibling comment) are arguing about. Larry and Sergey control the company and no other shareholders, no matter how many millions of shares they hold, would be able to block a decision that Larry and Serge…

I wasn’t arguing about control. If you actually read the arguments the gist of it is that shareholders are the only financial benefactors at companies, implying that employees don’t own any shares. I just reminded people who weren’t familiar with Silicon Valley that it isn’t true since stock is a big part of compensation for rank and file employees

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

#537

Post by chaostheory »

polygamous_bat wrote: post #531
chaostheory wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a moot point if you understand how capitalism works and the goal of corporate executives: ensuring maximum value for shareholders. As I’ve mentioned before, Google employees own a large amount of stock compare to the average person. Consequently, they will benefit no matter what

> This is a moot point if you understand how capitalism works and the goal of corporate executives: ensuring maximum value for shareholders. Yes, and the goal of communism is to "share the resources and maximize everybody's potential", wonderful if you are incredibly naive and believe that these systems always do exactly what it says on the sticker, and just an empty platitude if you've lived at least two days in the…

Fair point (this is the best counterargument in this thread so far), but do you have actual evidence of Google c level executives fucking over employee owned shares?

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

#538

Post by clemailacct1 »

paulsutter wrote: post #454
oblio wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad for individuals? A decent number of them are able to retire at 35-40. That's awesome for individuals.

Yes because the majority are working on nothing useful and they know it

That’s pretty subjective to the person. Some folks are very happy working on something that may be perceived as useless but gets to retire at a really young age.

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

#539

Post by mft_ »

KyeRussell wrote: post #311
mft_ wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick Google (natch!) suggests that the company mission is: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Does he "care deeply" about this? If we look at the direction they've taken in recent years, and the products they've launched (and/or killed) - how many of them demonstrate a "deep care" about this mission? How many of them are even tangentially related to this mission? (…

What argument are you trying to make here? This feels very “I’m going to logic you into my view”. Google is a large, nuanced organisation. The measure of Sundar “caring deeply” doesn’t have to be filtered through a marketing slogan.

The previous poster wrote (of Sundar): "I think he cares deeply about the company and its mission..."

I'm not trying to make an argument; instead, I was:

1) Checking what Google's mission is these days (as I'm not clear if the mission statement I found is indeed still their mission, and/or the one that the previous poster said that he cares deeply about)

2) If that is the correct mission statement, testing the premise that he cares deeply about it, by exploring the direction the company under his leadership has taken.

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

#540

Post by lrem »

lupire wrote: post #347
lrem wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Add to that if you wanted to, you can do the minimum and just coast. "Coast" a.k.a. perform only the duties as agreed in your contract, without going above and beyond. A.k.a. "quiet quitting", or the preposterous idea that the company doesn't own the time they don't pay you for. I'm a somewhat long-time Googler and really dislike this anti-labour narrative.

You can also not do your duties and bet on management not noticing.

That might be possible in some medium-sized companies. In megacorps probably about 5-10% of your time goes into various flavours of performance management. To hide for any significant amount of time, you'd need to have your manager actively cover you.
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