Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt and its thirty-something founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will again toss themselves a $1 annual salary this year. Their salary compensation has been a single greenback ever since Google went public in 2004.

The three will also forgo the bonuses and stock awards that are given to many of the search giant's 20,000 employees. But the beggar bags should not go out just yet.

Continue reading Google's top execs keep $1 salaries, forgo bonuses

Google's top execs keep $1 salaries, forgo bonuses originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As we begin the trek to grandmother's house, it's worth reflecting on what we have to be thankful for. The answer? When it comes to money, most of us have a lot less than we did a year ago. But for those of you who have your health and your families to comfort you, it will cost much less to buy the gasoline to visit than it would have in July. And as you're driving to visit those families -- consider how much less you lost in the last year than the world's 10 biggest losers.

According to the web site, The Business Sheet, those unfortunate people suffered a mind-boggling $176 billion in lost stock market value in the last 12 months. It turns out that 52% of the losses were suffered by three executives based in India. Here they are:

• Anil Ambani - $32.5 billion. Ambani heads Reliance Communications that invested $500 million in Dreamworks earlier this year.
• Lakshmi Mittal - $30.5 billion. Mittal heads ArcelorMittal which has suffered from a decline in the price of steel.
• Mukesh Ambani -$28.2 billion is Anil's brother and controls Reliance Industries, a petrochemical manufacturer.

• Sheldon Adelson -$30 billion. I did consulting work for Adelson about 22 years ago and he is quite a character. His Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) casino is suffering from the economic slowdown and he's had some trouble with debt.
• Warren Buffett -$13.6 billion. As I posted, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) has had some problems this year.

Continue reading The world's 10 biggest losers

The world's 10 biggest losers originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A look at the new Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) proxy shows that founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were each paid $1 for their work in 2007. Steve Jobs has done the same thing at Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL). Of course, the two Google founders each have about $13 billion in stock and Jobs is also rich as Croesus.

The $1 salary is a bit of theater. It says that the compensation of senior management will be built on the stock price. If it does not do well, all we have is that $1.

The gesture does not even fool idiots when the share price is down and the management is wealthy. Even with Google off from a high of $747 to its current price of $450, Brin and Page retain wealth which is beyond most investors' wildest dreams. The level of their salaries has no meaning.

Google shareholders would be much happier if Brin and Page plundered the company for tens of millions in compensation provided that they get the stock back over $700. The $1 salary is just an insult.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Google (GOOG): The stupidity of the $1 salary originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 26 Mar 2008 04:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Valleywag reports that Fortune's editor, Andrew Serwer, posted a blog entry October 19 about the wedding of Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) co-founder Larry Page to his girlfriend Lucy Southworth. (Fortune and BloggingStocks share the same corporate parent, Time Warner (NYSE: TWX)).

But when Valleywag wanted to write about the post, it had disappeared from Fortune's website. When Valleywag went to Google's cache, the reference to the Page/Southworth wedding was gone. Fortunately for those interested in the details of the post, Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) had a copy of the original.

By the way, the Serwer post said that Page and Southworth were getting married on December 7, and those attending the blessed event will need passports, which suggests it will be outside the U.S. Valleywag now suggests that the wedding could be held on Richard Branson's Necker Island. But one question remains unanswered: if you know why Fortune and Google removed this post from their sites, please comment below.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.

Did Google get Fortune to pull Larry Page's wedding announcement? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google (GOOG) trio scores another jet plus exclusive airport access originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) recently trading up $15.29 to $609.20.

GOOG is expected to report earnings per share (EPS) on October 18th. GOOG October at the money 580 straddle is priced at $32.10. GOOG October option implied volatility of 38 is above its 26-week average of 27 according to Track Data, suggesting larger risk.

The Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) CEO Glenn Murphy hosted a meeting with analysts on October 5th.

Smith Barney says "Mr. Murphy is focused on making the company gets an adequate return on its investments. This includes a focus on the expense of the business. We suspect there will be continued focus on moderating the cost structure and assessing various cost components, including marketing. We think the real estate portfolio is under review." GPS over all option implied volatility of 31 is near its 26-week average according to Track Data, suggesting flat price risk.

Daily options Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com.

Option update: GOOG straddle suggests risk into earnings per share as GOOG at record originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 08 Oct 2007 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google, Yahoo! click fraud range set at 10% to 15% originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 18 May 2007 12:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) reiterated what it has said for quite some time at its annual shareholders meeting yesterday: it isn't nearly as interested in large acquisitions (too late) as some think it is and likes buying small startup companies.

Add to that the propensity of Google management to want to "partner" with content sites on the web (and other places) instead of buying content companies, you've got the thrust of the meeting.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that recent large acquisitions from Google weren't done as a response to some competitive threat, but more to fill holes in Google's product portfolio. I think it's both -- Google is trying to compete better in the segments where it operates while establishing new advertising beachheads ("filling in product holes").

And no -- Google won't be buying Dow Jones & Co. (NYSE: DJ) or any other content company, according to Schmidt. Google co-founder Larry Page added to the discussion as well, and the general feel from Google's meeting for shareholders is that the company wants to partner with anyone who creates good content and who has an audience or can build one.

What does partnering solve for Google? Well, it lets the company sell advertising across every partnership and become -- as I've said many times before -- the largest advertising network the world has ever seen. And, Google will get a cut of every ad viewed, listened to or clicked on.

Highlights from Google's annual shareholders meeting originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 11 May 2007 10:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and watch out for more Battle of the Brands posts.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) was the shining star of the internet bubble in 2000, just before the dot-com crash, and has managed to keep a huge customer base (tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions based on how you calculate it). Yahoo! customers are loyal apparently, even though Google has trounced Yahoo! in recent years in terms of search popularity and overall brand awareness. Like Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), Yahoo! was founded by Stanford grad students, Jerry Yang and David Filo, so that information on the web could be more easily found back when the web was in its infancy -- 1995.

From 1995 to 2001, Yahoo! grew at a rapid clip, and then saw a downward spiral as advertising fortunes started collapsing at the same time Google's "text ad" advertising model started growing by leaps and bounds. It's pretty obvious by now that Yahoo!'s "one ad for all" approach grew quite stale (and so did its revenues) at the same time Google's "customer relevant" and unobtrusive ad model grew an an inversely proportionate rate. Yahoo! has made great strides on the comeback trail under five-year CEO and Hollywood expert Terry Semel, who has modeled Yahoo! as a "relationship builder" to customers (and gotten them to pay for certain services).

This model is quite opposed to Google's "tool-based" customer model that can't touch Yahoo!'s model for creating and enhancing actual relationships with paying customers, beyond just providing easy internet tools for customers while keeping that "relationship" quite distant. Yahoo! shares spit almost three years ago, but have remained between $29 and $44 per share since that time. By contrast, Google's shares have skyrocketed from $85 in August 2004 to over $460 today. In terms of an investment over the past five years, it's hard to draw a conclusion since Google has been publicly traded for less than three years, while Yahoo! has been traded for quite a bit longer than that.

Continue reading Yahoo! vs. Google: Battle of the Brands

Yahoo! vs. Google: Battle of the Brands originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 09:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Back in the roaring 1990s, the state of California had little trouble with its budget. Basically, with the dot-com bull market, the state was reaping huge amounts of revenues from tax-paying tech millionaires who were exercising their stock options.

Well, according to a story in the AP, it looks like history is repeating itself (kind of). In this case, it is mostly Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) that is providing the windfall.

In fact, 16 Google executives will account for $380 million in taxes for 2006 for California, of which about half comes from the co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

There will also be a boost from other comeback tech companies, such as Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ), and Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO).

Yet, by far, Google will have the biggest impact. Actually, it has even offset the impact of the slowing real estate market.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

What's good for Google is good for California originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 08 Jan 2007 12:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Weekly wrap-up for Google, October 16 to 20 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 21 Oct 2006 10:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A garage? Has Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) finally lost it?

Not really. You see, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin built Google, they rented out a garage (the company was incorporated on September 7, 1998). It was about 1,900 square feet - and, of course, ultimately turned into a $125 billion empire.

It's something that happens with some frequency in Silicon Valley. For example, in 1939, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started their legendary company from a modest garage (Hewlett-Packard Company, NYSE:HPQ, now owns it).

As for the Google garage, it is based in Menlo Park and will now become a Silicon Valley landmark of sorts. Oh, there is even a hot tub on the property. But, apparently, the co-founders did work tirelessly on their search engine.

On the Google corporate site, you can get some info on the early history.

The office offered several big advantages, including a washer and dryer and a hot tub. It also provided a parking space for the first employee hired by the new company: Craig Silverstein, now Google's director of technology.

Already Google.com, still in beta, was answering 10,000 search queries each day.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates InvestorOffering.com.

Google buys a garage originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 01 Oct 2006 19:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

"Google Boys" Boeing jet lawsuit settled -- in part originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 11 Aug 2006 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

From last week's feeding frenzy over results from the Internet and computer behemoths -- Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft -- let's focus in on the difference between the two most direct competitors from that bunch (whether the companies admit it or not): Google and Yahoo! Yahoo's earnings were, by all accounts, excellent.

I love it when the quarter is described only as "meeting analyst expectations," who cares? A company's results should be determined by more fundamental measures such as competitive gains, profit gains, growth (realistic), and EPS: not by "analyst expectations." But, I digress.

Yahoo! profit dipped from last year, mostly because the company sold quite a few Google shares in the year-ago period to make the quarter shine. Revenue increased 26% to land at $1.58 billion. Result: YHOO shares fell nearly 18% right after the announcement. Oh my -- as always, the market lost its head (not sure if it has one).

Google results were stellar and blew away "analyst estimates" by every measure -- $721 million in profit on sales of $2.46 billion. With a $2.33 EPS figure and a 77% revenue increase, Google's second quarter just upped the bar once again for the search giant. Result: GOOG shares fell almost all day before the earnings were released and slowly gained in after-hours trading. I still feel that Google shares are overvalued, but the company does continue to have incredibly impressive quarters. Will Google's sky slowly fall one of these quarters? Hard to say, but if it continues to give customers what they want and serve ads that work for the customer, Google's sky may just remain blue for a long while.

Google vs. Yahoo!: a look at Q2 results originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google is set to announce that it will open an office in Ann Arbor, MI which will employ 1,000 people over the next five years. While this may be a bit of an ego project for Google co-founder Larry Page, it reflects Google's deeply held desire to get a lot for a little. And its impact on the Michigan governor's race could be enormous.

It must be very gratifying for co-founder Larry Page to make such a powerful statement of his company's success a mere 11 years after graduating from the local university. Page was born in East Lansing, MI and graduated from Ann Arbor-based University of Michigan with an engineering degree in 1995.

But it doesn't take a math genius to figure out that Michigan is hemorrhaging jobs. According to the Detroit Free Press, "The declining fortunes of General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM) and Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F), along with the related bankruptcy filings of major automotive suppliers Delphi Corp., Collins & Aikman and Tower Automotive have hammered Michigan's economy."

Continue reading Google provides much-needed jobs to nation's heartland

Google provides much-needed jobs to nation's heartland originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were hoping to be throwing some massive mile-high parties by now. Instead their party plane is weighed down by lawsuits.

According to a story in today's Wall Street Journal, Page and Brin's private jet is the subject of multiple lawsuits over its renovations -- originally budgeted to take ten months and cost $10 million. Page and Brin bought the used Boeing 767 widebody, designed to carry 180 passengers, as a private jet last year and promised to use it to take lots of their friends to places like Africa.

Hey, I might like to do things like that if I was a billionaire. Don't worry, shareholders. The tab for the jet is not on Google's books. This is a private plane, technically owned by a holding company called Blue City Holdings, LLC.

The plans for the plane reportedly were to include a "lounge" for Google Chief Exec Eric Schmidt, two "state rooms" for Brin and Page, a dining room, and additional seating for passengers (near the back, of course). Apparently designer Leslie Jennings had to accommodate strange requests from Brin and Page, including having hammocks installed hanging from the plane's ceiling. I'm imagining a tropical feeling at 35,000 feet right now, maybe.

Page and Brin had reportedly had a few spats over the size of the beds in their bedrooms. Schmidt reportedly had to step in and say, "Sergey, you can have whatever bed you want in your room; Larry, you can have whatever kind of bed you want in your bedroom."

Continue reading Google guys' mile-high party plane hits turbulence

Google guys' mile-high party plane hits turbulence originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 07 Jul 2006 10:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Just who is really running Google?

Just who is really running Google? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 05 Jun 2006 18:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google founder is anti-split -- for all the right reasons originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 16 May 2006 10:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Last week Microsoft's Bill Gates expressed regret about being the world's richest man. When I read this, I was reminded of the expression, "be careful what you wish for, you might get it."

Before launching into an analysis of how Gates could be toppled from his throne, it's worth noting that I've admired Microsoft and wondered whether it's lost its elbow room. I praised Microsoft's ability to adapt to change in two of my books, The Technology Leaders and Value Leadership. But in the last several years, Microsoft seems to have lost its mojo as I noted in these interviews by Red Herring and The Washington Post.

Here's a surprise. The biggest threat to Gates's top rank on the Forbes 400 comes not from the number two on the list, but from numbers 15 and 16. According to that September 2005 list, Gates's net worth totaled $51 billion. Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett came in second at $49 billion. And he was followed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen ($22.5B), Dell's Michael Dell ($18B) and Oracle's Larry Ellison ($17B). Spots six through 12 were occupied by descendants of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, and heiresses from Cox Enterprises and Fidelity.

Continue reading Memo to billg: be careful what you wish for

Memo to billg: be careful what you wish for originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 07 May 2006 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google co-founders, CEO keep $1 salary for 2006 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 01 Apr 2006 16:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.