Tech

Google CEO Sundar Pichai doubled his pay last year to $200 million

Key Points
  • Google CEO Sundar Pichai's compensation doubled in 2016 to $200 million
  • Ruth Porat, CFO of parent company Alphabet, saw her compensation rise to $38 million
  • Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin once again collected only a $1 salary
Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Getty Images

CEO Sundar Pichai cashed in big during his first full calendar year at the helm of the Internet giant, nearly doubling his total compensation to $200 million in 2016.

Pichai received a salary of $650,000 last year, slightly less than the $652,500 he earned in 2015.

But the long-time Google employee, who was named CEO during the company's re-organization in August 2015, received a stock award of $198.7 million in 2016, roughly double his 2015 stock award of $99.8 million.

That brought his total compensation last year to $199.7 million, almost twice the $100.6 million he earned a year earlier.

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Pichai's haul came even as his two bosses, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, once again drew salaries of only $1 for their roles as CEO and President, respectively, of parent company Alphabet. But Page and Brin are each worth more than $40 billion through their stock holdings.

Pichai's raise came during a year when Google's sales rose 22.5 percent and net income rose 19 percent as it maintained its position as the top seller of Internet advertising.

The shares of its parent company Alphabet, however, underperformed the broader market for tech stocks last year.

Alphabet shares rose 5 percent in 2016, while the broad Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 10 percent.

Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat also enjoyed a significant raise last year.

Porat, who was brought in two years ago from Wall Street investment bank Morgan Stanley to instill more fiscal discipline in the company's operations, earned $39 million in total compensation last year, up from $31 million in 2015.

One more Google executive also saw a steep rise in compensation last year.

Diane Greene, now senior vice president for Google's cloud operations, earned total compensation of $43.7 million last year, most of it via two stock awards totaling $42.8 million.

That was up sharply from 2015, when Greene earned $454,000 as a director on the Alphabet board. She became a Google employee on Dec. 17, 2015, and as such is no longer compensated for her board service.

Alphabet on Thursday reported first-quarter sales and profit that topped Wall Street expectations, sending its shares to a record high.

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