Up to $692 million: Google CEO's salary is staggering.

As tech giants ramp up their efforts to attract and retain talent, executive compensation continues to reach unprecedented levels.

The new compensation plan for the CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet is attracting attention. According to a document submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, CEO Sundar Pichai could receive up to $692 million over three years. An amount that would place him among the highest-paid executives in the world…

Compensation largely linked to performance

The system put in place is based primarily on shares and financial incentives indexed to the company’s performance. Of the $692 million mentioned, only $6 million corresponds to Sundar Pichai's fixed salary, or about $2 million per year, an amount that has remained unchanged since 2020.

The remainder of his compensation takes the form of shares linked not only to Alphabet, but also to two of its strategic subsidiaries: Waymo, specializing in autonomous vehicles, and Wing, which develops drone delivery solutions.

The actual value of this compensation will therefore depend on several factors, such as the performance of the share price, the overall performance of the group, and the dividends paid to shareholders. If the set objectives are met, this plan could transform this theoretical compensation into one of the highest amounts in the tech industry.

For its part, Alphabet's board of directors justifies this mechanism by the CEO's performance. Since Sundar Pichai took the helm of Google in 2015, the company's market capitalization has increased nearly sevenfold.

A discreet leader in the tech ecosystem…

Despite these impressive sums, Sundar Pichai remains a relatively discreet figure compared to Google's original founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The latter have been making more headlines lately for their real estate investments, particularly in Miami.

Sundar Pichai, for his part, lives in Los Altos, California, and generally stays out of the media spotlight. However, his personal fortune has grown significantly over the years thanks to the shares he has accumulated in the company. According to several estimates, the shares he and his wife hold are worth nearly $500 million. Despite this particularly high compensation package, Sundar Pichai remains far from the record held by Elon Musk. Indeed, the Tesla CEO benefits from a shareholder-approved compensation plan that could reach nearly $1 trillion over a decade…