It’s absolutely no surprise that Silicon Valley is a big money maker these days. Companies like Apple and Google are counted as some of the absolute most valuable brands and firms in the world, eclipsing yesteryear’s oil corporations and dwarfing brands like Coca-Cola and so on. As such, it’s no wonder that the head of such a company would take home a large, large salary for a year’s worth of work. For Sundar Pichai, it’s been a fairly meteoric rise to become Google’s current CEO, and if a recent SEC filing is 100% correct – as it should be – Pichai made more than $100 Million last year.
Compared to a rumored $10.3 Million earned by Apple’s CEO Tim Cook during 2015, Pichai is certainly not doing bad for himself. This also compares favorably with Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, taking home roughly $85 Million for 2015. Now, it’s important to remember that Pichai didn’t actually take home all of this money and was awarded “just” $652,500 as a salary, a further $99.8 Million worth of restricted stock and ‘other’ compensation coming in at $22,935. That restricted stock is where much of Pichai’s newfound wealth resides, as it’s not available to the buying public, and could only increase over time until Pichai wishes to sell it or to draw earnings from. Bloomberg has also reported that last February Pichai was awarded a further $199 Million in restricted stock.
Sundar has become something of an inspiration for the Indian people, along with Satya Nadella he represents a generation that can and will do great things given the chance. Not to mention the importance of a good education, which both Sundar and Satya stuck to. In the case of Pichai, his days at Google were forged creating the Chrome browser and being instrumental in launching Chromebooks into the mainstream. He then took the place of Andy Rubin behind the wheel of Android, and has since become the CEO of Google. Whether or not this decision was taken purely because Larry Page and Sergey Brin moved over to the firm’s new parent company, Alphabet Inc, is unclear, but Pichai has more than proven himself over the past few years.