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Even the Masseuse is a Multimillionaire at Google
PCOL writes "The NY Times is running a story on how stock options that have given an estimated 1,000 employees at Google a net worth of $5 million each affects the culture at Google. Google gives each of its new employees stock options, as well as a smaller number of shares of Google stock, as a recruiting incentive. The average options grant for a "Noogler" (new Google employee) who started a year ago was 685 shares at a price of roughly $475 a share which at last Friday's close would be worth $128,000. But employees say Google is different from other large high-tech companies where the day's stock price is a fixture on many people's computer screens. "It isn't considered 'Googley' to check the stock price," said one engineer adding that it is also considered unseemly to discuss the price with other employees. And the masseuse? In 1999 Bonnie Brown answered an ad for an in-house masseuse at Google "on a lark" and after five years of kneading engineers' backs, she retired, cashing in most of her stock options to travel the world, oversee a charitable foundation she founded, and write a book, still unpublished, titled "Giigle: How I Got Lucky Massaging Google.""
Web company. Billions made in advertising dollars. Founders making billions. Employees getting rich from stock options.
When this crashes it will be loud and hard. Hopefully you guys working at Google are going to do the smart thing and save as much money as you can while you can.
I know people who were working for FreeMarkets. The exercised their stock when it was selling at 190$ triggering paper profits of 180$ a share and AMT. Paid AMT and when they liquidated their holdings a year later, they made a LOSS after counting AMT.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
This is a non-sequitur. The stock price is a subjective judgment investors make, not something that falls out of the accounting calculations. It's not "correct" just because the accounting isn't fraudulent. (Obviously fraudulent accounting causes mispriced stocks, but the inverse isn't true.)
Maybe the reason why it's not done at Google to ostensibly check the stock price every day is out of embarassment over the fact that employees that join now will have to hope that their $700 options stay afloat while they may be more brilliant and their contribution more critical to the company than that of employees who join only one year ago.
I think that options are great for startup companies, which Google is not anymore, to compensate for the risk that the people who work in them do, and the fact that the contribution of early employees is by definition seminal to building a successful company. But for mature companies (which Google is now), it becomes too difficult to manage as a standard compensation system. How can you keep employees focused on their commitments if the cash bonus that you can afford to offer them at their annual review is dwarfed by the value of the stock options they already got just for being hired ?
(Not that you can't make money gambling, borderline or otherwise, mind you...)
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
There was a time when IBM was the juggernaut, and a young Microsoft was eyeing the giant and assessing whether the stones from its' sling might topple IBM. Interestingly, Microsoft took a niche and exploited it masterfully and then extended their market share and influence to the leadership position it occupies today - but IBM is strong and has massive revenue.
Even if Google grows to dominance and eats some of Mcrosoft's lunch, as Microsoft did to IBM, that does not spell the end of Microsoft.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Here's one employee who got there through work. She learnt a trade - massage therapy - and she practised it well. And she found an opportunity for excellent pay. Good for her.
The engineers were just lucky to have been born with high IQs and good memories. This is essentially what the entrance interviews test - there is little interest in a broad range of abilities, or "wider picture" thinking - which is why Google mostly just copies existing ideas and throws its marketing weight behind them. Have colleagues who worked at G; elite robots, awful imaginations.
I look forward to the competition from the likes of the new ask.com. Remember, the only reason Microsoft's been successful for so long is because they, too, produced a mediocre product that was "just about more bearable" than all the rest, yet marketed it so much better.