When Bonnie Brown signed on to provide services as a masseuse to the staff at Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s home office back in 1999, I wonder how she felt about receiving stock options as part of her compensation. At the time, the company was a 40-person Silicon Valley start-up, one of thousands snatching up venture capital, the vast majority of which went out with a whimper by the time of the tech crash.

Bonnie evidently stuck with it, though, and as a result is now a multi-millionaire. According to The New York Times, she has established her own charitable foundation and spends her time traveling and finding good uses for her money.

The Times reports that over a thousand people own over $5 million each of Google shares and options, and current and former employees hold options of over $2 billion. While new employees continue to gain stock options, the days of exponential growth such as Brown had experienced have no doubt passed, which makes me wonder if this might not drive the best and brightest to look for work with companies at an earlier stage in their development cycle. Google might be a little concerned about attracting too many people who are simply looking for a safe, dependable place to work. Those people are not the innovators that it thrives on.

Kudos to Brown, who deserves to benefit from her willingness to take risk. I, for one, like to see money ending up in the hands of the kneady. (Sorry!)

Google options rub staff masseuse the right way originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 12 Nov 2007 13:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.