

Google Gives $100 Million Award to Outgoing CEO - DarrenLehane
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704624504576098070086282958.html

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benologist
Should have said he was going to Facebook, they'd have given him a billion.

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vladd
Non-trimmed article links:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-21/google-said-to-
gran...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-21/google-said-to-
grant-100-million-in-equity-to-eric-schmidt.html)

[http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/01/google-
er...](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/01/google-eric-schmidt-
equity.html)

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joshfraser
Keep in mind Eric has been taking a $1/year salary since joining Google. Not
that he has suffered financially at all due to his equity holding in the
company, but I doubt anyone would argue this is well deserved.

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mistermann
I don't know, I would say it's certainly debatable. Would things really be
that different had he not been there? Could someone else done a similar job
for say, only $50 million (and the same compensation due to options)?

I don't have any particular opinion in this instance, but discussions of this
nature seem to be forbidden for some reason.

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SoftwareMaven
I don't think you can second guess like that, since there is no way to answer
the question. In a world of infinite possibilities (second guessing the past),
everything is possible but meaningless.

All you can do is ask "Did he accomplish his job in such a way as to deserve
earning $100M over the course of 10 years?" I think the answer to that is
probably yes.

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jacquesm
> In a world of infinite possibilities (second guessing the past), everything
> is possible but meaningless.

But we don't actually live in a world with infinite possibilities. It's easy
to think that we do but in practice our possibilities are circumscribed in
many ways.

Who knows, without knowing exactly which decisions that Schmidt made led to
which gains for google it is very hard to point out if this is due to his
presence or not. On the whole the company is much better off than when he
joined but it seems strange to lay all the credit for that at the door of the
CEO, lots of people at google played a role in that and I'm pretty sure they
won't be compensated to match if they decide to step down.

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raheemm
Isn't he a billionaire from Google stock?! Seems like exec compensation has no
logic...

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code_duck
He's arranged to sell $335 million of stock later this year, also.

