Google Gold Gives Thousands a New Lifestyle
A look at the 'Googlaires' and what they're doing with their fortunes.
Nov. 7, 2007 Special to ABCNEWS.com — -- After receiving tens of millions of dollars when he cashed out his Google stock options, Aydin Senkut knew he had enough money to quit his job and start a new chapter in this life.
"Google money gives you a comfort level," said Senkut, a senior product manager at the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant, who left in April 2005 after nearly six years with the company. He hasn't retired, though. Senkut has been plowing some of his Google money into start-ups. The windfall has also allowed him to visit his parents in Turkey for several months, and purchase his childhood dream car: a Lamborghini — in orange. "I just wanted to get it in a color that was fun," he said.
Senkut is one of an estimated several thousand "Googlaires" — current and former employees who have earned at least $1 million from the sale of their Google options. Although Senkut and other Googlaires wouldn't disclose the size of their initial grant, a tally of disclosures made in documents filed by Google to the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that Google has granted more than 25 million option shares to its employees, which now number nearly 16,000 in all, since 2003.
Click here to see some Googlaires at our partner site, Forbes.com.
The shares vest over four years, with 25% vesting the first year and the rest in monthly increments over the remaining three years. Several batches of grants — one administered in 1998, the other in 2002 — have fully vested. A batch doled out in 2004 is vesting next spring. The exercise prices for all the batches range from 30 cents to $35 — just a fraction of the $444.49 exercise price on options granted last year.
As a result, early Googlers like Senkut — who joined the company in 1999 — got the sweetest packages. In addition to miniscule exercise prices, the grants contained a hefty number of shares. In 2003, the first year for which public data exists, Googlers received on average 11,000 shares each. Last year, employees received on average 320 shares each because Google's stock price had raced into the stratosphere.
