By: Seth Fiegerman
Sundar Pichai scored one of the most prestigious titles in the tech world last year when Google restructured its entire organization and named him CEO.
Now he’s getting a nice little bonus to match. Like, enough to buy an island, or at least a pretty village.
Google, or really its new parent company Alphabet, last week awarded Pichai nearly $200 million worth of stock (based on the market price at the time) set to vest quarterly over the next four years, according to a company filing last week.
One downside: The stock award was worth closer to $182 million as of market open on Monday.
But who’s counting?
Bloomberg, which was first to spot the filing, reports that it is the single largest stock award Google has ever offered to an executive.
It is not, however, the biggest stock award to an executive in history. It’s hard to get data on that, but Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, reportedly holds about $681 million of Apple stock grants.
GoPro’s CEO, Seth Woodman, holds roughly $284 million in restricted stock, as of last year.
The grants usually vest gradually over some period of time — around 4 years in many companies — so they are not just bundles of cash.
Pichai, a longtime Google executive, previously ran Google’s Chrome and Android businesses and was described by colleagues we spoke with as “the better day-to-day CEO” than his predecessor and Google cofounder Larry Page.
In August, Google created a new holding company called Alphabet, with Page as CEO, in order to boost transparency for investors and make room for more of its innovative bets and billion-dollar acquisitions.
Another key factor behind that restructuring, according to insiders we spoke: to attract and retain top talent like Pichai with more C-suite roles.
Clearly some extra money doesn’t hurt either.
MASHABLE
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