Google gives Eric Schmidt 124,999,900% salary increase Google has rewarded Eric Schmidt for shifting from the CEO's office to exec chairman by bumping up his salary from $1 to $1.25m. The company's latest filing at the SEC shows that Schmidt will also qualify for a bonus of 400 per cent of that salary. The filing also details the move of Alan Eustace from senior VP of engineering …
Whenever I see some useless windbag get paid way, way too much I'm always reminded of these lines from The New Statesman.
Piers Fletcher-Dervish: "But Alan you already have lots of money, you don't need it."
Alan B'Stard: "No Piers I don't need it but I want it, because I'm very, very greedy!"
The stated 'value' of shares is what you'd get if you could sell them all at the current market price.
However, this ignores the fact that if you did start selling lots of them, the market price plummets. Sell enough and the value hits zero.
If you're a 'big shot' in a company, selling your shares results in an even steeper nosedive of market price because everyone assumes you must know something they don't.
Furthermore, there are rules about selling shares in your own company to avoid/limit insider trading.
So the actual realisable value of said "$6bn" in shares is relatively close to zero.
It may be not at all related, but I refer you to the national debts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the rest of Ireland (ROI), Greece, Germany, Japan, Spain, Portugal, the U.S. of A. and probably everywhere else except Norway, Switzerland, Luxemburg and Lichtenstein.
That's a bit too simplistic view. He may like some of the moments, but the day to day of running large companies like Google can suck the enjoyment out of anyone.
I'm sure he could easily find more enjoyable things to do with his time than sitting through legal or auditor meetings (just examples).
I think he got so much money because he was at the right time in the right place, and knew the right people, like many others.
Maybe his other interests (see Fast Company's 1996 article on him) also played a role?
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if my boss gave me a 400% bonus.
Of course, I understand that, in his stead, I would indeed be a bit miffed if I only got a bonus of $4. So yes, put my salary at umpteen million first, THEN give me the 400% bonus.
But really, all this is happening in lalaland and nothing to do with humans.
At all.
me and my 4 shares have a horrendous problem with this, given that he satisified his ability to earn a viable income for several lifetimes. While I am a huge believer in the risk/rewards of building businesses and capitalism, as a whole, at some point, executive management isn't worth the money they're being paid.
Schmidt has reached that lofty plateau.
If he wanted to do good for the employees and investors of google, he'd simply work for a dollar a year and live off of the hard work that he's earned.
But that's just an opinion.
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