Google CEO Sundar Pichai eyes new pay package worth $692m

Google parent Alphabet has lined up a new three-year pay package for chief executive Sundar Pichai that could be worth as much as $692m.

This deal would put the Google boss among the best-paid corporate leaders in the world if the performance targets are met. Most of the award is tied to long-term stock incentives, including new grants linked to Waymo, the group’s self-driving car business, and Wing, its drone delivery unit.

A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission shows Pichai’s annual salary will remain unchanged at $2m and that he will not receive an annual bonus. Instead, Alphabet has structured the package around triennial equity awards: two tranches of performance stock units with a target value of $63m each, $84m in restricted stock units, and separate “bet performance units” in Waymo and Wing with target values of about $130m and $45m, respectively. Those performance awards can vest between 0% and 200% of the target, depending on results.

Alphabet said the award was intended to reflect Pichai’s performance and to sharpen his focus on scaling its more mature “Other Bets” businesses. In the filing, the company said Waymo and Wing had made strong progress under his supervision and that incentivising him to develop those operations was in shareholders’ interests.

The package also underlines how much Alphabet’s value has grown during Pichai’s tenure. The Financial Times reported that the company’s market capitalisation had risen from about $535bn when he took over as Google chief executive in 2015 to $3.6tn, after briefly topping $4tn in January.

The move comes as two of Google’s co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have separately drawn attention for high-end property purchases in Miami. The Wall Street Journal reported in January that Page had spent $173.4m on two homes in Coconut Grove, while Business Insider reported this month that Brin was linked to a $51m waterfront mansion in Miami Beach.

Those deals have unfolded amid debate over a proposed California ballot measure that, according to the state attorney general’s title and summary, would impose a one-time tax of up to 5% on certain individuals and trusts with covered assets valued above $1bn.

Pichai has generally kept a lower profile than the founders, even as Alphabet’s share price has made him extremely wealthy. Bloomberg reported last year that he had become a billionaire, with a stake in the company worth about $440m at the time and more than $650m of Alphabet stock sold since becoming chief executive.