Google’s Eric Schmidt Got $101 Million in Compensation in 2011
Google Inc. Chairman Eric Schmidt was paid $101 million last year, including stock awards and options that vest over a four-year period, as he turned over control of the company to co-founder Larry Page.
Schmidt, who was paid $313,219 in 2010, received $55.6 million in share awards and $38.1 million in options, the Mountain View, California-based company said yesterday in a regulatory filing. The remaining $7.2 million came from Schmidt’s $937,500 salary and other compensation.
Schmidt, 56, who was named CEO in 2001, stepped down a year ago, putting Page back in charge of the world’s largest Internet search engine. Page and co-founder Sergey Brin, Google’s largest shareholders, were each paid $1 last year, part of a plan put in place in 2004. While shareholders should monitor to ensure Schmidt’s incentives are in line with the company’s goals, his pay shouldn’t be seen as reward just for 2011, said David Larcker, a corporate governance professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
“It’s a big enough number that it would get your attention, and it’s appropriate for shareholders to ask why it’s that big,” Larcker said in an interview. “You’d want to feel pretty comfortable that that corresponds with his new position, the new things he wants to do. But this is a multiyear grant — it’s not like you’re going to see this every year.”