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Even the Masseuse is a Multimillionaire at Google
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Nov 12, 2007 09:32 AM
from the why-don't-they-all-just-retire dept.
from the why-don't-they-all-just-retire dept.
PCOL writes "The NY Times is running a story on how stock options that have given an estimated 1,000 employees at Google a net worth of $5 million each affects the culture at Google. Google gives each of its new employees stock options, as well as a smaller number of shares of Google stock, as a recruiting incentive. The average options grant for a "Noogler" (new Google employee) who started a year ago was 685 shares at a price of roughly $475 a share which at last Friday's close would be worth $128,000. But employees say Google is different from other large high-tech companies where the day's stock price is a fixture on many people's computer screens. "It isn't considered 'Googley' to check the stock price," said one engineer adding that it is also considered unseemly to discuss the price with other employees. And the masseuse? In 1999 Bonnie Brown answered an ad for an in-house masseuse at Google "on a lark" and after five years of kneading engineers' backs, she retired, cashing in most of her stock options to travel the world, oversee a charitable foundation she founded, and write a book, still unpublished, titled "Giigle: How I Got Lucky Massaging Google.""
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Sure (Score:5, Funny)
*wink wink*
Its cool baby, i'm not a cop.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Sure (Score:5, Informative)
But hey, all the power to 'em. I think people that uptight are likely the ones who need a massage the most.
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Re:Sure (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Sure (Score:5, Funny)
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Mangled summary (Score:5, Interesting)
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better title (Score:3, Funny)
And when I say this, I mean it affectionately... (Score:2)
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My envy isn't pure, it's alloyed with plain old fashioned avarice.
Now, that's a happy ending (Score:5, Funny)
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Noogler? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Noogler? (Score:4, Funny)
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It was either that or call them Goobs... neither sounds all that appealing.
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The followup might be goobers, which the adolescent at google (and possibly microsoft) will transpose as boogers.
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Cash them in!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cash them in!!! Really Remember FreeMarkets (Score:3, Insightful)
I know people who were working for FreeMarkets. The exercised their stock when it was selling at 190$ triggering paper profits of 180$ a share and AMT. Paid
Re:Cash them in!!! Really Remember FreeMarkets (Score:4, Informative)
But, when you exercise the stock, the difference between market price and the exercise price is counted as your "gain" for the purposes of Alternative Minimum Tax. Though you have not sold anything and you have not seen any money and the gain is merely a paper gain, it is counted as taxable for AMT. If you follow this path and pay the AMT and the stock falls and you sell it at a lower price, you can claim a loss. You cost basis for the stock will the market price used in AMT calculation. So if it falls you could recover the excess tax you have paid. But still it is not a simple calculation of 33% income tax vs 20% capital gains tax. It is 33% tax in AMT + 20% capital gains on further gains in the next year or 100% of the loss in the next year. It is more complex to calculate and judge. Play it simple, get money into your pocket and pay the tax on actual realized gain.
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Re:Cash them in!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
People forget how to make money in stock. Buy low and sell high. They tend to hold when it's high thinking they are going to be richer.. I keep sell orders in and smile when they hit my prices. I sold a bunch 3 weeks ago and sold some more last week when it peaked. If the price dips enough, I'll buy back some at lower prices. Often I can increase my holding by 20% in a month this way, or pocket 20% of my holdings and wind up rebuying the same amount of my original shares. I love it when the market moves up and down. That is how to make money.
Don't forget.. Sell high!
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ask aroung and look at the comments... Has anyone lately said Google is low? The general take is Google is high. The knowledge is "It is high". Use that to your advantage. It is high simply means there are tons of people who will bail when the bubble bursts. If you don't want to hold the bag when the massive sell-off starts, it is a good stock to not be holding.
If it is climbing, put in a sell order and
Re:Cash them in!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
(Not that you can't make money gambling, borderline or otherwise, mind you...)
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Should google for news stories of 1905 Detroit (Score:2)
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new meaning (Score:3, Funny)
This is a very familiar story (Score:5, Insightful)
When this crashes it will be loud and hard. Hopefully you guys working at Google are going to do the smart thing and save as much money as you can while you can.
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When this crashes it will be loud and hard. Hopefully you guys working at Google are going to do the smart thing and save as much money as you can while you can.
I highly doubt google stock is going to go down, in fact I foresee it doubling or tripling inside a decade or less. Why you ask? Lets look at how google has positioned themselves:
Re:This is a very familiar story (Score:5, Insightful)
Ballmer will one day wake up and will find their mail products, office products and OS sales are all no longer selling.
Fine, everyone uses google office, in your scenario. But how does that make Google money? Again, having tons of happy customers is fine, but not having a way to collect revenues from them directly... that's the killer. There's a difference between making people happy and making them money. Stock price is about making people money.
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Kill MS? You forget history (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if Google grows to dominance and eats some of Mcrosoft's lunch, as Microsoft did to IBM, that does not spell the end of Microsoft.
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This happens when people fail to sell high and hold and buy instead. When a stock gets expensive, I sell. Take a look at the market last week. A couple stocks I don't own are Google and VMWare. VMWare started too expensive. Last week it peaked over $110 a share. This morning, it is at $87. Google is also too expensive to hold. Many investors
DOH! (Score:3, Funny)
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Google Cash (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, keep in mind that the stock price keeps going up. This isn't just because Google is cooking the books. They appear to be legitimate financially. As long as this is the case, many people -- even the millionaires -- will stay on board. I predict that once Google takes a serious financial hit, many will bail out. Ideals be damned.
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A lot of us felt the same way when I was at UUNET (RIP). Thanks, WorldCon.
Fortunately, Google isn't run by a megalomaniacal crook.
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How would you know?
There seems to be some disconnect with reality when it comes to google or any other large geek-friendly company. Pretend for a second that they _are_ a multi-billion dollar corporation and pretend also that you know jack shit about them beyond what you're told. That "pretend" is reality.
I can hear these stories until the cows come home. Doesn't change shit. Google is still mega-corp no matter how many segways they ride the halls with
a million bucks isn't what it used to be (Score:3, Interesting)
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She got lucky at google? (Score:2)
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Stock Options (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that options are great for startup companies, which Google is not anymore, to compensate for the risk that the people who work in them do, and the fact that the contribution of early employees is by definition seminal to building a successful company. But for mature companies (which Google is now), it becomes too difficult to manage as a standard compensation system. How can you keep employees focused on their commitments if the cash bonus that you can afford to offer them at their annual review is dwarfed by the value of the stock options they already got just for being hired ?
It is good to watch the stock all day...... (Score:5, Funny)
Stock options keep you going when everything else is falling apart, baby! I stared at that little window for a straight 18 months, and LIKED it.
Sure, Mountain View aint Redmond; there are actually more reasons to go outside, but if Microsoft had been giving out free food, I think I might have died under my desk, and my group manager just covered up my body and sprayed perfume on it until we shipped.
More about Bonnie Brown (Score:3, Informative)
Re:just because you got it doesn't mean you earned (Score:2)
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So, do you have a date? Vague predictions of doom aren't "actionable intelligence".
Re:The next... (Score:5, Informative)
Google seems to be employing the same technique as Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffet), i.e., never split the stock. The benefits of doing this is that your stock price is less subject to the "churn" associated with dime-a-dozen 401(k) "day traders" who don't understand that $600 * 1 == $25 * 24.
I have no opinion either way on the value of Google stock as I haven't looked at the numbers, but it's viewpoints like yours (coming out of ignorance) that cause the boom and bust stories in the market. Find good companies at a good price run by good management (the unstated part of this is that to figure out these points, it needs to be a company in an industry you understand), then buy and hold until those factors change. That's all there is to it. Most investors don't have the patience to implement such a method, which is why you can be told how to make money and it still works. And if you doubt me, ask Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffet, and Peter Lynch how it worked for them.
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