Four Google execs got 200% stock payouts for 2023 after strong company performance
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- Four Google executives will receive 200% performance-based stock payouts in 2023.
- This comes amid layoffs and a turbulent year for the company.
- Google's senior VP and chief business officer each got $35 million in stock for 2023.
Google parent company Alphabet paid four of its executives tens of millions of dollars in stock payouts for 2023, based on the company's public-markets performance.
President and chief financial officer Ruth Porat, along with senior VP Prabhakar Raghavan, chief business officer Philipp Schindler, and legal chief Kent Walker, have been awarded the company's maximum number of performance-based stock units, Google said in a regulatory filing last week.
Base salaries for the four executives remained $1 million last year, and they each received a $1.5 million bonus. The executives were also granted millions of dollars' worth of performance and restricted stock units, which vest at different times and depend on the execs sticking around.
The executives' stock-based compensation can range from 0% to 200% of the target number of shares, based on Google's performance relative to the S&P 100.
A 200% stock payout raised the total stock value for Porat and Walker's 2023 compensation to $23 million each. Raghavan and Schindler were compensated $35 million each in stock value, according to the filing.
The executives' compensation was approved in early February after a tumultuous year for the company.
The tech giant axed 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce through last year, and warned it would lay off more workers in 2024.
"We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year. The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices," CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in an internal memo in January.
The layoffs and the slashing of key projects have hurt sentiment within the company, BI reported in January. The company's leadership received strong backlash from some of its employees, who publicly aired their exasperations regarding layoffs on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Alphabet's stock is up 55% in the last year.