Job-slashing, cost-cutting Alphabet paid CEO Sundar Pichai $226 million last year

[midian182]

WTF?! Sundar Pichai received a massive $226 million in total compensation last year in his position as Alphabet's chief executive, making him one of the tech industry's top earners. News that the boss makes more than 800 times the median employee's pay is likely to be a bitter pill to swallow for the 12,000 people Alphabet is laying off.

Alphabet's securities filing on Friday showed that $218 million of Pichai's $226 million compensation in 2022 came in the form of a triennial stock grant. The money also included a $2 million annual salary and $6 million for personal security. That latter figure is undoubtedly high, but it's still less than half the $14 million Meta gives Mark Zuckerberg for his safety.

The filing showed that other top executives at Google and Alphabet received around $22 million to $35 million in annual stock awards last year. When Pichai announced the Alphabet job cuts a few months ago, he said senior executives at the company would receive lower bonuses as part of the cost-cutting measures. The Financial Times writes that the company's most senior executives received $775,000 less in pay for 2022.

Only eight public company chief executives received more compensation than Pichai last year. It's a slap in the face to the 6% of Alphabet's workforce that are being laid off. In Switzerland, Google workers staged a walkout over the layoffs, while those who remained offered to take pay cuts so their colleagues could keep their jobs – Google refused to consider such action. The company's London workers also staged a walkout over the layoffs this month.

Alphabet's stock price is up since the start of the year

What's also surprising about Pichai's massive compensation is that Google has implemented some of the most extreme cost-cutting measures ever seen. In February, a number employees were told they would have to share their desks with someone else, reducing the amount of real estate space the company pays for.

More measures came earlier this month when Google said it was cutting back on employee fitness classes, staplers, tape, café opening times, and even the frequency that it replaces workers' laptops. Maybe Pichai could buy them a few notebooks from his own pocket?

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https://www.techspot.com/news/98416-job-slashing-cost-cutting-alphabet-gave-ceo-sundar.html

 

[Uncle Al]

I'm sorry but that kind of salary is simply unexplainable. NOBODY is worth that kind of money and frankly, as executives go there needs to be a salary cap and elimination of board of directors control on salaries. Senior executives salaries should be a voting issue for stock holders.

 

[kira setsu]

Maybe 2023 is the year the masses decide to fight back? starting to wonder how hard people need to be molested by these rich, power hungry deviants before some no's start being shouted.

 

[trparky]

Wow, so this guy makes millions while they can't afford a $150 desk? What are they going to tell the employees next? You have to share a chair?

Maybe 2023 is the year the masses decide to fight back? starting to wonder how hard people need to be molested by these rich, power hungry deviants before some no's start being shouted.

Tell me about it.

 

[hover389]

So?

 

[VitalyT]

A theme for inspiration...

 

[p51d007]

Don't like it? Quit, start your own company.
It's no ones business what someone gets paid other than (in this case)
the google CEO and the board/shareholders.

 

[Julnor]

Maybe 2023 is the year the masses decide to fight back? starting to wonder how hard people need to be molested by these rich, power hungry deviants before some no's start being shouted.

Doubt it. It's been a half century plus of this and they've only gotten worse in that time span.

You will see more apologists and bootlickers than you will ever even see criticism of these things. Something like 20 to 1 it looks like on average, and I'm probably before generous to the criticism side on that. It's got to be somewhere around 10,000:1 that would actually ever physically do anything.

 

[Alex T]

Don't like it? Quit, start your own company.
It's no ones business what someone gets paid other than (in this case)
the google CEO and the board/shareholders.

In theory and in a normal free market, that should be the answer. The problem is, what we have now is closer to a controlled monopoly, where for example, any medium company that eats market share from a giant, is either being bought or brought out of business. The business model of large companies like Google rely specifically on having close to a monopoly on their market. And once a company grows to be worth more than medium sized countries produce in a whole year, they kind of become "allmighty".