Google Giving Out Big Awards
Google has begun giving out more awards to employees for exemplary service. These awards are in some cases millions of dollars worth of company stock. The New York Times reports that the first of these awards were given out in November, with $12 million distributed (unevenly, based on each person’s contribution) to about 24 employees on two different teams. One team devised a means of linking users to the ads that might most interest them, while the other worked on a undiclosed “particularly important deal”. These awards are called the Founders Awards, and consist of restricted stock that vests in monthly increments over four years. The purpose of the awards? To keep that dotcom feel after the IPO.
Mr. Brin said a large part of the reason for creating the award was to give people incentives to apply for jobs at Google even after the promise of getting rich from the company’s initial public offering last August had passed.“Grads coming out of school now might want to go to Google, but want to be rewarded based on the success of their project,” he said. Google already offers bonuses and options, he said, “but not to the scale where you can legitimately claim it’s comparable to doing a start-up.”
He goes on to say that the awards may be given out once a quarter. I think its a great way to keep employees motivated. Who would you give the awards to? My recommendations, in order:
- The Picasa team
- The AdWords API team
- The Froogle team
- The Gmail team
- The Desktop Search team
Possibly the Scholar team as well (it’s very useful).
