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Google Rewards Employees With Millions
iseff writes "According to News.com, the Google guys created a program in November which rewards employees for outstanding achievements. The program gives the possibility of millions of dollars of stock to teams who perform great work. The goal of the program, according to Brin, is two-fold. First, it allows the company to reward 'genius', or whatever they see as genius. And second, it allows them to continue to hire all sorts of employees. According to the article, they believe that a recent grad who would like to work in a start-up will still be attracted to them because of the opportunity to create something great and be rewarded with millions (and without much of the risk associated with startups)."
It's restricted stock. Which probably means they can't sell before some point in the distant future. At that point, maybe it's worth millions, or maybe you can exchange it 1:1 for shares in Webvan. Who knows?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
As I read the article, Google awarded *stock*, not stock options - and I find that significant.
Rather than rewarding employees with paper that has no real value today (and which costs the company no real money today) and which might have value in the future, they are rewarding the employees with paper that has value today, and probably will have value in the future (as well as costing the company real money today).
If that is the case, then kudos to Google.
If the linked story is incorrect and this is nothing more than options - then I retract my kudos.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Options don't become stock immediately. Really, we're talking retiring five years after your first multi-million dollar project bonus, so you can actually receive it (assuming the stock is still worth that then... of course, it could be worth even more... or nothing at all).
yeah, this is exactly what i thought. just because this is google doesn't make it immune from poisonous types who will do illegal things to satisfy their greed.
RTFA.
So $12 million was divided amongst roughly 24 people, or half a million each. That's not enough to retire on.
The headline might imply that employees are getting "millions" each, but in actuality, a reward program worht "millions" is being dispersed among dozens (hundreds?) of employees. I don't think any individual employees have been rewarded with an award worth "millions."
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
They don't get a check. Read the damn article. The money vests over 4 years... They gotta keep workin and now they gotta really perform, otherwise they get fired and dont get all the millions.
Google doesn't want you working there for much longer than that anyways. They want to keep the company average age at 25.5 years old.
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
RTFAATWT - that stands for RTFA All The Way Through. In fact, just read the first few paragraphs and you'd see [emphasis mine]:
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
Um... for someone who mentions "P/E" Ratio, you sure don't understand the basics of finance... why are you looking for the word "profit" when you are talking about financials. You want "earnings"... and lookie... there is in the article!
"The results did not disappoint. Google's earnings of $52 million, or 19 cents a share, were up from $20.4 million, or 8 cents a share, in the July-to-September period last year. And without one-time charges to cover its stock-based compensation and the settlement of a patent dispute with rival Yahoo Inc., Google said it would have earned 70 cents a share. That beat the consensus estimate of 56 cents a share from securities analysts polled by the Thomson Financial research firm."
There's a thing called Earnings (profit attributable to shareholders.)
Look into it, and get back to me.
I'm not a financial genius, but I can do math. $12 Million given to "two teams of a dozen or so employees each" does not mean that these people are set for life. That's $6 Million per team and $500 thousand per person. Definitely a nice bonus, but not enough to set someone for life.
Even if one team won all $12 Million they would not be able to retire, at least not immediately or financially stably. Assuming these people make $150,000 (good money) 1 Million is just like getting paid for 7 years work at once. Well invested, that could be great, but (particularly if you have a family) it would not set you up for life.
All said, I would not turn down the $500,000.
For those who weren't tuned in Sunday, This is the award Mr. Burns gave to Homer on Sunday's episode of the Simpsons. Poster failed, however to work in any jokes about low sperm count.
There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
Me like tax. Tax laws fun.
In Soviet Russia, asses suck this joke.
So they could laugh at me for propagating an urban legend"?
True, a restricted stock may not be sold today. That is not my point.
A stock option is normally issued at very nearly today's market price for a stock, and is nothing more than the guarantee that stock may be purchased at that price.
If gasoline is $1.759 a gallon, and I offer you a piece of paper saying "I guarantee you can buy a gallon of gasoline from me for $1.759", how much is that paper worth right now.
Nothing, as you can go to the gas station and buy that gas for that price without my paper.
Now, if gas goes to $2.759 tomorrow, then that paper is worth $1.00.
If the price of gas goes to $1.009 tomorrow (fat chance), then the paper has no value whatsoever.
Now, if I give you a piece of paper that says "I guarantee you 1 gallon of gas" then that paper is worth $1.759 today. If gas goes to $1.00 a gallon, then it is STILL worth $1.00.
And that is my point - that if Google is actually issuing stock, not options, then they are doing something unusual and worthy of respect.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Which is completely irrelevant.
The math you want is $500,000 at, oh let's say 6% ultra-safe retirement investment rate = $30,000 a year before taxes. Take out 25% for the Feds and 9% for the state if you live in Kalifornia and you're looking at less than $20,000. And you still haven't paid for health insurance...or many other things.
The goal in retirement planning is to have a large enough nest egg that you can live off the interest, and hopefully not all of it so you can hedge inflation. Hard to do on $500K.
Advice: on VPS providers
Depression is like stubbing your toe on a doorframe. The pain is telling you something. In the case of a busted toe it means don't do that again. In the case of depression it means do something.
That is a domain name, not a TLD. A Top Level Domain is .net, .org, etc.
Bored? Why not join a decent mess
Jeez... I'd be happy with just replacing the damn John Wayne TP! Just cuz it's 2 ply doesn't mean it should leave paper cuts where the sun don't shine!!!
Sorry man... the Internet pooped on me.
You're right. The ratio of CEO's pay to average worker's has now gone up to 458 times (as of 2000).
Or to put it another way, the ratio of average CEO's pay to the US President's salary has risen from 2/1 to 62/1 since 1960.
Another version: shows 411 times.
I don't have the figures for armed robbery though.
according to the now unfindable by google ninetyninezeros blog
Can you say troll? This is blatently false