Pichai's $692M Pay Tied to Waymo, Wing
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- Sundar Pichai received a new three-year pay package from Alphabet that could be worth $692 million, per an SEC filing first reported by the FT, making him one of the highest-paid executives on the planet.
- The package includes new stock incentives linked to Waymo and drone delivery venture Wing, with the majority of compensation tied to performance milestones.
- Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the world's second- and fourth-richest people, have been snapping up Miami properties — Page spent over $173 million on two Coconut Grove mansions, while Brin was linked to a $51 million megamansion 14 miles away atop two earlier $92 million purchases.
- California's proposed Billionaire Tax Act, a ballot initiative targeting the state's roughly 200 billionaires with a one-time 5% levy on net worth exceeding $1 billion, is widely seen as driving the founders' Florida relocations.
- Pichai remains rooted in Los Altos, California, and he and his wife currently hold Google shares worth nearly $500 million, with an estimated $650 million sold as of last summer per Bloomberg.
- Google's market cap has grown nearly sevenfold since Pichai took the helm in 2015, making the stock he accumulated along the way enormously valuable.
Why it matters: Alphabet is willing to commit up to $692 million — more than the ~$1.15 billion Pichai and his wife currently hold or have sold in stock — to keep its CEO, with the deal's performance triggers betting specifically on Waymo and Wing succeeding. Meanwhile, founders Page and Brin are moving roughly $316 million-plus in luxury real estate to Florida, a shift widely attributed to California's proposed 5% billionaire wealth tax, highlighting a stark contrast between Pichai's commitment to California and the founders' exit.
