Sundar Pichai is net worth $600 million even before he takes over as Alphabet CEO

• At this time, it’s unclear whether Pichai will collect a salary for both his positions — CEO of Google as well as the CEO of Alphabet. Larry Page, who will be stepping down from the post, only took a salary of $1 a year.
• But then again, Pichai’s net worth of $600 million billion pales in comparison to Page’s net worth of $59 billion.
• In 2018, he took home $1.9 million, including his base salary of $650,000 along with perks — like personal security — which is two and a half times more than any median Google employee.

Sundar Pichai has been having a good end to this year. After all, he became the CEO of Alphabet Inc, Google’s parent company. What remains to be seen is whether he will also be taking a hefty compensation home with him.

At this time, it’s unclear whether Pichai will collect a salary for both his positions — CEO of Google as well as the CEO of Alphabet. Larry Page, who will be stepping down from the post, only took a salary of $1 a year.

But then again, Pichai’s net worth of $600 million billion pales in comparison to Page’s net worth of $59 billion.

Pichai hasn’t been among the highest-paid executives in the industry since 2016 — which was the last time he collected a stock award.

Salary and optics

Even before Pichai became Google’s CEO, he was already a hot commodity After his success with Chrome and Android, there were rumours that Twitter and Microsoft wanted to poach him.

To keep him from leaving, Google handed him a pay packet of $110.5 million. The pay award was ‘in recognition of his performance and increased responsibilities as the leader of all Google’s technical product areas’ according to company’s filings.

In August 2015, Pichai became the CEO of Google at the age of 42. A year later, he received another stock award — valued at $199 million at the time, nearly twice the compensation over the year before.

This is an anomaly since Google is known to give out large stock awards to its senior executives every two years — and not annually.

And, that was the last time he collected a big paycheck.

Mo money, mo problems

In 2018, he took home $1.9 million, including his base salary of $650,000 along with perks — like personal security — which is two and a half times more than any median Google employee.

Earlier this year, Pichai could have decided to increase his salary, but he turned that down along with the option to exercise his stock options worth $58.1 billion.

He reportedly felt that he was already being paid generously. Others opine that he did it for the optics since many Google employees at a meeting earlier in the year had asked why Pichai was getting paid millions when ordinary employees were struggling to pay rent.

Pichai resides in a luxurious 10,557 square foot villa in Los Altos Hills in California. It boasts of amenities like a tennis court and a miniature golf field. He owns six luxurious hot wheels including a Google Testing Car, a Cadillac, and a Tesla.

In addition to that, Google was going through one of its toughest years with anti-trust violations in the EU, Congressional hearings back home and workers protesting Google’s China search engine — Dragonfly.