
Google Paid This Man $100 Million - jmount
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Google-Paid-This-Man-100-Million-Here-s-His-4414507.php
======
flyinglizard
Reading this, his compensation is the least amazing part. If this article is
true, it should have been titled "A Story Of Competence". Does anyone have any
doubt the guy is generating Google this money many times over? It's simple
math. It has nothing to do with curing cancer, economical equality or anything
else. He's something that's worth X and pays back many X.

I can understand why this comes as a shock to some; it may be difficult to
accept that another person doing his 9-5 job can bring so much value to a
company. I always suspected such value creators exist (Jobs would be one).

So good for him for delivering, and good for Google for acknowledging and
compensating accordingly. And good for me too; I'm taking my first steps as an
advertiser with Google and I'm really liking what I'm finding so far.

~~~
dopamean
People sometimes find it difficult to understand that some people are actually
worth the astronomical figures they are paid. When we hear about the big pay
day it's easy to focus on that number what not what was done to earn it.

~~~
flyinglizard
True, and it's way easier to accept how someone is a successful businessman or
a stakeholder in a company, than it is to accept that someone may be actually
producing this kind of value on a personal level. It's easy to imagine how
some trader did some wheeling and dealing for a quick buck or how someone with
shrewd instincts made a profitable investment, but it's very difficult to
imagine how someone creates all this value by himself, day in day out; how
someone stands out like this in an organization like Google, which is both an
intellectual powerhouse and far removed from the compensation culture in the
finance sector - this is even more difficult to accept.

Maybe that's why people pick on CEO salaries but stay silent on the
shareholder profits from the very same corporations. You can imagine 100
million dollars of oil barrels or real estate, but you can't imagine a 100
million dollars mind.

~~~
dopamean
It really is a hard concept to grasp. It's one thing to have grand plans for a
business. It's another thing entirely to be able to communicate those plans
effectively to all of the people who will be needed to make sure the plan is
properly executed. People who can do this successfully deserve everything they
are given in my opinion.

------
avenger123
This is a classic story of really good negotiation.

Getting the very serious offer from Twitter was the best thing to happen to
Neal.

I can only imagine the negotiation with Google that he must of had. It
probably went on the lines of something like this -

"Hey, I really love it here at Google. I am really excited with what we are
working on and want to deliver it but this Twitter offer is just something
that I can't ignore. I am looking at the financial future of my family and I
would be doing them a disservice if I don't consider this offer seriously. Is
there anything we can do to just make this offer go away."

Neal had the upper hand. Worst-case scenario for him would be that there would
be no change. He would continue to work at Google. Next best case scenario
would be that he would be working at another mega-tech company, and getting
better compensated with potentially even greater upside.

Google was in a position of weakness in either case. If they did nothing and
he left, it would amount to even more collateral damage as others would get
the message that Google can't compete and Twitter would make even more offers
to others.

By paying him out, they basically paid him the opportunity cost in real
dollars that he may have had if he moved to Twitter.

In all of this, Neal's professionalism would have tipped the favor on his
side.

~~~
777466
Serious question: does the sweetened language, how you couch the situation
really make a difference to decision makers?

~~~
vacri
I think when you start talking about the financial future of your family, it
makes more sense when you're a line employee. But when you're on a salary well
into the six figures, it sounds disinegenuous (to me) to say "we're struggling
here". By all means go for "hey, I'm in demand and thinking of moving -
business is business", but "I'm moving because I'm concerned about my personal
finances"?

But then again, I'm not the guy who does salary negotiations...

~~~
zevyoura
At the level being discussed here, I don't think it's a question of avoiding
struggle, but rather of ensuring your family's wealth for generations to come.
It would be difficult to turn down such an offer, especially if the work would
still be interesting.

~~~
777466
then there is
[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1986/...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1986/09/29/68098/index.htm)

------
simonsarris
I find this fascinating. It almost smacks of game theory. A land-mined game of
incentives, anyway.

Think of the sheer amount of considerations that go into a decision like this.
Higher-ups at Google must acknowledge:

* Offering someone an enormous sum only _after_ someone else has made you an offer can be off-putting. Consider the many articles written about never making counter offers[1], or never accepting them.

* Along the same lines, if you're not offered a large enough sum to stay, you might take it as an insult. "They're only offering me this much money _after_ I've considered leaving?" Google certainly made sure the sum was large enough, by any count.

* Offering an enormous sum to one person may tempt others to fish out offers from other companies. Others may feel like they're never going to get a raise unless they are courting or being courted actively.

* Google's decision-makers (or check-writers) have to be careful about the number picked. They want to send a message to the person, and to other companies, and to the market. But they probably don't want to end up paying $100m for _every_ high value employee. Luckily for Google, if its gonna be a cash arms-race against other companies, there are few that can do serious battle with them.

* Speaking of high value employees, while you might get _person A_ to stay, you make make resentful _group B._ After all, there's already a comment here: "It's only a matter of time before us little developers get's similar packages!" It's not a stretch for anyone to sympathize with that view.

~~~

And then, at the end of all that, people in a room pursed their lips together
and quietly nodded while somebody pulled out the (metaphorical) checkbook.
This guy is staying, it's going to be this much money, and we're going to make
it purposefully public knowledge. Signals everywhere.

It seems to be a dangerous game. Others may (as a default) suddenly feel
unappreciated since Google hasn't made them an offer to keep being a Googler,
and perhaps hasn't approached them with any considerable raise in some time.
100 million ensures that you keep a single employee, but how many do you
alienate at the same time?

Hard to blame Google's decision, I'm sure they gave it much more thought than
I have. I wish I could know what they're thinking, it's just so fascinating
what goes into this.

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3549384>

~~~
nikcub
Google is safe offering him $100M without offending the other employees,
because the other employees at that level at Google already earn that much, if
not more.

Giving him $100M was more of a correction because he arrived at the company
later than the other equiv execs. Most of the top tiers of employees at
Google, which is where he would be, are worth hundreds or millions and more
through vested stock, new options, bonuses, etc.

~~~
bjourne
I find that very hard to believe. I'm ok with the talk about hackers being 10x
more productive than regular developers. But a $100m bonus would mean that guy
is about 1000 times more valuable than the average. It defies common sense in
every way. And it's not just because I'm jealous and resentful I'm thinking
that, no ones time is that valuable.

~~~
nawitus
A person making decisions that may lose $100 million or make a $100 million
profit can be thought as "1000 times more productive", because large
losses/profit depend on his actions.

Of course the average software engineer at Google can't make similar
decisions, so they can't be worth that much even in theory (unless they happen
to invent something revolutionary).

So my point is that yes, CEOs can be "worth" thousands of times the salaries
of the average employee, but that's not fundamentally about the skills of the
CEO, but because the CEO happens to be in a position where his
choices/strategy/etc have extremely large consequences. (In this example Mohan
is not CEO though, but makes similar choices that a CEO does).

A real world example would be Stephen Elop at Nokia: some say that he has made
Nokia lose billions of dollars, when another CEO might have made Nokia save
that money.

~~~
pesenti
Why stop at $100M? A company worth $250B could justify $50B salaries following
this argument. And the same exact argument can justify outrageous salaries for
traders who gamble huge amount of money that's not theirs. Yes, large
losses/profits depend on their actions but it's unclear how much of that
depends on their skills. A lot has to do with chance or market dynamics that
nobody really grasps. And if they win, they win big bonuses, but if they lose,
at worst they lose their job.

For traders, Daniel Kahneman has shown that they have no skills whatsoever
(see [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/dont-blink-the-
ha...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/dont-blink-the-hazards-of-
confidence.html)). I do believe that CEOs have some skills but the expected
value of these skills is much lower than the potential impact of their
decisions. Having been a company owner, I have learned that how CEO decisions
are executed (by all the other people in the company who don't make outrageous
salaries) is often much more important than the decisions themselves.

~~~
oijaf888
That seems to say that stock pickers and fund advisors have no skills, not
very much about professional traders. whatsoever. I've read some stuff that
said that the military has studied pit traders at NYMEX due to their skill in
handling vast amounts of information and making split second decisions on it.

~~~
pesenti
You are right. I used "traders" a bit too vaguely. Kanheman's research applied
more to stock pickers and wealth advisors. But I think the argument applies to
all: none of these people's skills justify the 8 or 9 figure bonuses that Wall
Street has been distributing.

------
cridal
Wow. Definitely, an interesting reading. And a special guy, no question about
it. On the other hand, the guy didn't cure cancer. Doesn't it give anyone
pause to thin that the topic of conversation is 'ads'? You know, those little
annoying things you would never click, and which get in the way of your normal
life.

I mean we're talking about billions of dollars. So much human talent, skill,
intelligence taken away from really important things... Just sad...

~~~
slyv
Ads are also the thing that enables really amazing things to exist. Regardless
of your feelings about facebook, the community it has created has had drastic
impacts on the world at large. Almost the entire knowledge of humanity is now
in anyone's grasp with a simple click of a button (Google). That was only
possible because Google was able to make money off of it through ads. How do
you propose that the internet pay for its self without ads? The whole freedom
of the internet is because they can make money off of ads.

Not everyone needs to cure cancer to do something great.

~~~
rayiner
What's deeply ironic is the modern internet is bankrolled by brand trademark
monopolies, but programmed by a bunch of people who complain about government-
granted monopolies...

There's a quote from the 1950's from a judge very skeptical of extending
trademark law to the effect of "we shouldn't allow building brands too much,
because then people will buy things for reasons other than product quality and
that'll undermine competition in the marketplace by making products non-
fungible."

I personally like monopolies,[1] so it's cool with me, but you have to wonder
what the internet would look like if Adidas sold shoes and not "footwear
experiences."

[1] There is no profit in perfectly competitive industries, and thus no money
to do cool stuff. That's why, e.g., Microsoft is so screwed. It keeps hoping
for innovation out of companies like Acer, Lenovo, Asus, etc, that have profit
margins of just a few %.

------
NelsonMinar
Original source for the article, with better formatting:
[http://www.businessinsider.com/neal-mohan-
googles-100-millio...](http://www.businessinsider.com/neal-mohan-
googles-100-million-man-2013-4)

~~~
majani
A study showed that links from Business Insider stand an extremely low chance
of getting upvotes on HN ( [http://blog.rjmetrics.com/surprising-hacker-news-
data-analys...](http://blog.rjmetrics.com/surprising-hacker-news-data-
analysis/) ). That's why people post other websites' syndications of BI.

~~~
nikcub
which is a shame, because BI has been really good recently - to the point that
I visit the site each day

that said, I do enjoy the irony of a BI original article being syndicated by
another publisher and becoming more popular than the original source

------
wallflower
This is a job for life and then some.

If you compare this with full professorship (academic tenure), that will cost
the university about $4 million (assuming $60k/yr - probably $6-7 million if
the university is upper echelon). So conservatively this is 10-15x what tenure
is.

Neal Mohan sounds like the business equivalent of Jeff Dean [1]

[1] <http://research.google.com/people/jeff/>

~~~
hyperbovine
Ahem. This is 10-15x the _money_ portion of tenure. You still have to think
about advertising all day every day. I'd take the tenure.

~~~
samstave
I am completely naive to what you just said, may you please explain like I am
five? [I am dead serious]

~~~
burntsushi
I think the GP is saying that a tenured professor typically has the _option_
of a wide range of job freedom. You work on pretty much what you want and when
you want. The GP is contrasting this with being the head of advertising at
Google, which one might guess is fairly demanding.

~~~
thomasbk
Also, improving advertising isn't generally seen as having the highest
positive impact on society, whereas a professor might contribute to a cure for
cancer.

------
capred
Does anyone know if these types of $100M numbers are actually true? I think it
makes a great headline but wouldn't everyone at senior ranks get packages like
this making it unsustainable?

~~~
waterlesscloud
It does seem likely that some tricks were involved to arrive at a sensational
number.

But if Google pays an average engineer on the order of $100,000 , this is 1000
times the average annual salary as a one time bonus.

That seems exceptional, certainly, but not completely insane.

On the flip side, it might keep a certain type of engineer for bolting for a
startup. Even the most optimistic entrepreneur knows the odds of a $100 M
payday are pretty much non-existent.

~~~
robrenaud
Google pays a starting engineer fresh out of college that much salary, and
then there is stock and bonus incentive compensation.

------
rckrd
The article mentions an "epic 400-500 page Powerpoint document" outlining
Mohan's strategies.

In the rare chance that this is floating around the internet, does anyone know
where it would be or more information on it?

~~~
patrickk
Sounds like the kind of document that the distribution of would be tightly
controlled. It was probably shown to select people, but not actually emailed
to anyone. You get to see the slides, but you don't get a copy.

------
yekko
It's only a matter of time before us little developers get's similar packages!

~~~
cygwin98
Not really. I have been curious on what kind of compensation Paul Buchheit
obtained for his creation of gmail and adsense, the former being the one of
the two GOOG services I depend on daily, the latter built the empire
financially. I am pretty sure that that amount could be far lower than $100M,
which is a very depressive fact for our programmers.

------
iamvictorious
It makes sense ... the guy is running a multi-billion dollar new business line
for Google that is their most meaningful business outside of search ads.

------
genericresponse
The article makes a point to say that he started with a job that paid a
"humble" $60,000 per year in 1997. Based on my quick and dirty run on wolfram
alpha, that is the equivalent to $120,000 per year today. Not so much of a
humble beginning for a second job out of college.

~~~
waterlesscloud
What? That can't possibly be right.

BLS says it's more like $86k

[http://data.bls.gov/cgi-
bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=60000&year1...](http://data.bls.gov/cgi-
bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=60000&year1=1997&year2=2013)

~~~
jarcoal
Was just about to post that exact link. Still not too shabby.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Not bad, but I was making the same in 97 with about the same experience level,
in Atlanta. It wasn't an exceptional salary in any way.

~~~
nilkn
It's not exactly a completely humble beginning either, though. You may be out
of touch with what salaries look like for the average American.

------
vannevar
_They say Mohan is the visionary who predicted how brand advertising would
fund the Internet, turned this vision into a plan, and then executed it._

Some say 'fund', others might say 'destroy'. What's in a word?

------
SeoxyS
Google's purchase of DoubleClick seems to be considered a huge success. I'm
curious how the $750M purchase of AdMob is seen in the company. Does anybody
have an insight or references?

------
whnevan
"They'd spent the months prior trying to turn Twitter into "a real company"
after years of neglectful management."

Anyone care to explain how the management was neglectful? Serious question.

~~~
Maven911
I think it might have to do with the founder, jack dorsey, staying on as CEO,
though he was eventually ousted out of that role

------
SKy33
This happened at a time when Google was bleeding top management talent to
Facebook and Twitter. [http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/06/google-said-to-have-
high-le...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/06/google-said-to-have-high-level-
mole-at-twitter-makes-massive-counteroffers-to-retain-employees/)

Sundar Pichai was also offered $50M. As things have settled down, I doubt if
this would happen again, at least anytime soon.

------
dyno12345
Note to self: Become an executive.

~~~
wilfra
*Become indispensable in a role where you are directly responsible for driving billions of dollars in revenue.

~~~
dyno12345
Step 1: Become an executive

~~~
wilfra
Step 1 is to be really fucking good at your job, whatever that job is. Ideally
that job would be in a unit that is directly responsible for driving revenue
growth. That will probably lead to you becoming an executive at some point,
but that would be a symptom of your success, a necessary evil, not the
starting point.

Especially in a company like Google, which has a cultural disdain for empty
suits, if your goal is to "become an executive" you'd never find yourself in
his position.

~~~
dyno12345
I've been really good at my job, and never became an executive. I think
there's more to it than that.

------
dkwak
I've always been curious what display advertising is and how it generates so
much revenue for Google. Are there any good resources to learn more about what
exactly goes on behind the scenes? Do those little ads on my gmail sidebar
really create billions in wealth? Or is there some super secret illuminati-
esque subliminal advertising going on?

~~~
InclinedPlane
<http://www.google.com/ads/displaynetwork/>

It's distinguished from search-based advertising (e.g. adwords). It's
basically just ordinary online advertising, and there are a great many
different ad networks out there already. However, google's network has been
gaining a huge amount of traction recently and took the top spot in
marketshare within the last year or so, even pulling ahead of Facebook. In
total these sorts of ads are worth around $2 billion a year in revenue for
google but both the size of the market and google's share of it are growing at
double digit rates so google's revenue from it is likely to double within the
next few years.

------
Tycho
I'm thinking either this story is entirely sensationalized, or Google are
scared that this guy will take his roadmap and go execute it elsewhere. Like
he has seen upcoming trends and Google know they have to be first to act on
them. I wonder what they could be...

------
namank
Wonder how it worked out...

Did he hand in his resignation and was asked to reconsider? Did he tell them
he wanted more money? Did they find out about the twitter offer from outside
sources and arrange for the bump?

How did the semantics play out?!

------
erhanerdogan
According to story, he did use Powerpoint. It is bothering me.

------
michaelochurch
You know what? Fuck that.

Nothing against this guy. If it were $1 million, or $3 million, I probably
wouldn't bat an eye.

A _hundred_ million for a non-technical executive would be OK, _if_ engineers
had basic autonomy and open allocation. Then (and only then) they'd _actually
be able to afford_ (morally speaking) a $100M payout to a non-technical
executive.

Don't call yourself a technical company if engineers in the $100k-200k range
_can't even fucking change projects_ until 18 months in (and often not even
then, due to a corrupt performance review system) but you're running a private
welfare system for non-tech executives.

I know all about Hanlon's Razor ("never attribute to malice what can be
explained by incompetence") but somewhere around the 5-standard-deviation
incompetence level I go back to malice because 5-sigma is just awful rare.
Paying a non-tech executive $100M while engineers making < 1% of that struggle
to get a decent project is 8, 9 sigma at the least.

Choke on a fucking taint, Google. Choke. On. A. Taint.

(Or just implement basic autonomy/open allocation for _all_ engineers. Then
we're cool no matter what you pay your execs.)

~~~
_k
Regarding epen allocation. What if only 2 engineers are needed and 100 are
interested ?

~~~
rhizome
To use an anecdote from just this morning, if you Google the terms, "google
tasks android," you'll see that the inverse may also be true: Google engineers
able and interested to work on something that is a no-op for mysterious
reasons.

------
Evbn
Does anyone remember when DoubleClick was the most hated company on the
Internet? Spying on users, displaying obnoxious ads? The Evil that Google was
to Not Be?

