Google Billionaires to Get $1 Salary
MOUNTAIN VIEW - The three billionaires who run online search leader Google Inc. will settle for a $1 salary again this year while four other top executives will receive raises of $200,000 apiece, according to documents filed Monday.
It marks the third consecutive year that Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have limited their salaries to a $1. It's a sacrifice that they can afford because they have gotten rich off their large stakes in Google, whose stock price has more than quintupled from its initial offering price of $85 in August 2004.
Page and Brin are each worth about $14 billion while Schmidt's fortune stands at $5 billion, according to Forbes magazine's annual ranking of the nation's wealthiest people.
The salaries of four other Google executives are climbing from $250,000 in 2006 to $450,000 this year. They are: Robert Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research; Omid Kordestani, senior vice president of global sales and business development; Jonathan Rosenberg, senior vice president of product management; and George Reyes, the company's chief financial officer.
Google also gave the same four executives bonuses totaling $829,912 for their 2006 performance. Schmidt, Page and Brin didn't receive bonuses.
Separately, Schmidt provided investors and analysts with another upbeat assessment of Google's prospects.
Speaking Monday at a technology conference in San Francisco, Schmidt said Google's experience during the last economic downturn in 2001 and 2002 indicated customer-starved advertisers are likely to pour even more money into the search engine to take advantage of the company's technology that identifies potential buyers.
Worries about a slowing economy have contributed to a 4 percent decline in Google's stock price so far this year. Google shares rose $2.27 Monday to close at $440.95 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, then added another $2.16 in extended trading.
Source: Kansacity
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/technology/16839675.htm
