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Google CEO Sundar Pichai to take massive pay cut after firing 12000 employees – India Today

It appears that Google CEO Sundar Pichai will take a large chunk of his salary cut amid layoffs and tough macro economic conditions.

New Delhi,UPDATED: Jan 29, 2023 08:16 IST

By Sneha Saha: It appears that CEO Sundar Pichai will take a large chunk of his salary cut amid layoffs and tough macro-economic conditions. In a recent town hall meeting with Google employees, Pichai announced that all roles above “senior vice president” level will witness a significant reduction in their annual bonus.

“All roles above the senior vice president level will witness ‘very significant’ reduction in their annual bonus. For senior roles, the compensation is linked to company performance,” Pichai reportedly said during the town hall. While he didn’t clearly talk about taking salary cut, by his words it is clear that he would also take a pay cut. Pichai didn’t mention the percentage of salary that will be cut and for how long.

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Now, just a few weeks before Google announced layoffs Sundar Pichai got a massive hike in salary. At the time, Google’s parent company Alphabet, board recognised Pichai’s “strong performance” as CEO and said that the vesting of a significant chunk of the award would depend on Alphabet’s total shareholder return relative to other S&P 100 companies.

Alphabet also added that the award was tweaked to increase the performance stock units (PSUs) from 43 per cent in 2019 to 60 per cent, which increases the performance requirement for the payout. In addition, the Google CEO was also given two tranches of PSUs with a target value of $63 million each and $84 million in the form of Alphabet’s restricted stock units.

So, what is the annual salary of Pichai? According to a filing from 2020, Google disclosed Pichai’s annual salary to be $2 million. As per the IIFL Hurun India Rich List 2022, the Google CEO’s net worth fell 20 per cent to Rs 5,300 crore. However, he still ranks amongst the top richest professional managers on the list.

Google is going through a tough time. Right before the town hall, Pichai announced firing 12,000 jobs across verticals. Many impacted employees said that they were not ready for the layoffs and also that Google abruptly removed their access from all internal office groups. In fact, some also complained that they got to know that they are laid off after their ID access turned red from green.

Among the 12000 employees, there were many who worked at Google for nearly a decade or more. Such employees were left disappointed and felt that the layoffs were not based on performance rating. However, Pichai in the internal meeting clarified that the layoffs were not “random”.

The layoffs at Google have started in the United States and will be followed by other markets – possibly including India – in the weeks to come.

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