
Google Employees Watch In Horror As 60 Percent Of Their Stock Options Drown  - nickb
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/10/google-employees-watch-in-horror-as-60-percent-of-their-stock-options-drown/
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pchristensen
_"The free food and transportation are great perks and all, but let’s get real
here. Without the financial upside those stock options represent, Google
employees will start looking elsewhere."_

Free food and transportation might be even more valuable now.

Anyone that wants to work at a big company won't find better stock options and
definitely not a better work environment. Anyone that wants to work in a
startup environment was going to leave Google eventually. So no, Googler's
won't be running for the door.

I'd be interested to see how the internal market for reselling stock options
looks right now.

~~~
nickb
Forget about food and transportation... having a job will be the most valuable
thing of them all.

I doubt many Googlers will 'start looking elsewhere'... where exactly would
they look? Dubai? China? Heh.

~~~
tdavis
Exactly. I am no longer convinced that people actually _think_ before writing
TC articles.

~~~
omouse
TC has basically become part of the mainstream media then? That's a shame, I
guess it's back to the Economist for me

~~~
mattmaroon
Did you ever find TC to be on level with The Economist, or even in the same
ballpark? Or hell, even the same sport?

TechCrunch does one thing very well, which is up to the moment headlines (on a
rapidly changing industry) with just enough commentary that you can get a feel
for what happened. It's one very small notch above a Twitter feed. If you're
looking there for in-depth analysis, you're always going to be disappointed.

~~~
tdavis
_If you're looking there for in-depth analysis, you're always going to be
disappointed._

Quite the contrary; I want TC to report start-up news. That's it. I don't want
any editorials, op-eds, or analysis. Why? Because, as many _many_ articles
including this one prove, they are nearly always completely ignorant of the
situation and say ridiculously stupid shit as a result.

They do that well, as you said, but it's when they go beyond the bare
necessities and actual facts into the realm of "analysis" that the writers
(and editors and everyone else between an article and my face) fall flat on
their asses and cause my blood pressure to rise in the process.

 _"Shit, I can't swim. I know I can't. So you know what I do? I stay my black
ass outta the pool."_

~~~
gojomo
I don't think TC even cares if their analysis is sensible.

For them, the value is long comment-threads and inlinks/clickthroughs. And bad
analysis often gets more such attention... so bad analysis is what they prefer
to provide.

~~~
tdavis
Indeed. I live in a fantasy world where people who "report the news" do so in
a manner where only facts are presented and any opinions or analyses are
backed up by trustworthy, informed, unbiased sources. I realize that world
doesn't exist, but that doesn't mean I won't stop berating those who create
"news" for this one.

Sadly, your point is an oft-relevant one so my only recourse is to read TC
even less than I do now, which is to say stop reading the articles that show
up here.

------
iigs
I don't know when their fiscal year ends, but having a drop right before
review time means that when annual grant time comes around you're getting them
at a lower price. Of course if the market is only going to go down-down-down
then this is precious little consolation.

Google moved into our area a couple years ago. When that happened the buzz in
the tech job market was full of "I could go apply at Google". I remember, even
at that point, having the feeling that the stock grants would probably be
small and the potential for a stock price slide was really high.

I would say with most tech companies if your employee number is less than 50
AND you have a high ranking position (manager plus) you might have a chance of
having stock with a significant upside. Otherwise you're better off just
getting the cash up front, in salary. Obviously Google was quite a bit larger
and more successful, but post-IPO grants in technology are generally a joke.

~~~
dcurtis
This is generally true, but I was under the impression that Google gave
unusually generous grants as a form of compensation.

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jcl
On the bright side, I suppose, any new Google employees will have a bigger
gain to look forward to.

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ctkrohn
Options don't become worthless when they're out of the money, as long as they
haven't expired yet. The probability of the option being valuable at expiry is
greater than zero, so the expected present value of the option is greater than
zero.

~~~
hugh
Indeed. If anyone has goog options that they think are "worthless" then I'll
be happy to buy them at one cent each.

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chollida1
This could actually be a boon to employees at Google as this may mean they
have to start raising salaries.

The same thing happened at Microsoft, Intel, Cisco and Adobe as they
transitioned from growth companies to mature companies. Once they couldn't
necessarily count on their rising stock price to act as part of their
employee's compensation they started to raise salaries to help make up the
difference.

~~~
dmv
Also, restricted stock grants (like Microsoft adopted) look a lot better. Yes,
it hurts to see your "potential grant" value decrease - a 50% drop is a 50%
drop - but there is still absolute value (unless the stock becomes worthless).

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ckinnan
I watch in horror as 60 percent of my 401k drowns.

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kleneway
One problem with options is the rift it may cause between people who joined
the company while the stock was going up versus those who joined while the
stock was going down. The people with the sinking options start to wonder why
the guy next to them is leaving early each week to head out on his yacht,
while you're stuck working extra hard to try to earn a 10% boost in your base
salary next year. I believe Gates said something once about how offering
options in the MS early years was one of his biggest regrets - exactly for
this reason.

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josefresco
329 is the magic number (of worthlessness) eh?

328.8 as of right now.

------
known
Current Share Price of the Company = 5 x Book value Per Share of the Company.

Current Market Capitalization of the Company = 10 x Quarterly Revenue/Sales of
the Company.

Anything beyond this could be irrational or manipulation.

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workpost
This is happening to people in all sorts of industries.

------
huhtenberg
> _Google Employees Watch In Horror_

Feels like Digg.

------
TweedHeads
Tagged as propaganda and FUD.

