JOIN USGoogle’s 44-year-old India-born CEO Sundar Pichai received nearly $200 million (Rs 1,341.68 crore approx) in compensation last year, double the amount he got in 2015.
Pichai received a salary of $650,000 (Rs 4.36 crore approx) last year, slightly less than $652,500 (Rs 4.18 crore approx) he earned in 2015 in dollar terms (but in rupee terms it is slightly higher due to currency variation).
But the long-time Google employee, who was named CEO during the company’s reorganisation in August 2015, received a stock award of $198.7 million (Rs 1,332.96 crore approx) in 2016, roughly double his 2015 stock award of $99.8 million (Rs 639.03 crore approx).
The company’s compensation committee attributed the lavish pay to Pichai’s promotion to CEO and “numerous successful product launches”, the CNN reported.
Larry Page, Google’s co-founder and previous CEO, shifted his focus to growing new businesses under the Alphabet umbrella. Under Pichai, Google has boosted sales from its core advertising and YouTube business, while also investing in machine learning, hardware and cloud computing, the report said.
In 2016, Google unveiled new smartphones, a virtual reality headset, a router, and a voice-controlled smart speaker. These efforts have started to pay off for the company.