Date:03/04/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/04/03/stories/2006040304141400.htm

International

Top Google officials reject pay hike

Silicon Valley: Popular Internet search engine Google's Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were offered a raise in their salaries, which they declined to accept saying they would continue taking the token amount of $1 annually. They were offered increase in their salary but they rejected the offers citing own preferences not to receive salary and bonus compensation at this time, a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said. Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Page and Mr. Brin first reduced their annual salaries to $1 in 2004 when Google filed plans to go public. Before that Mr. Schmidt had been earning an annual salary of $250,000 while Mr. Brin and Mr. Page received $150,000 a year. ``There is a school of thought that if you have a significant block of company stock that should be sufficiently motivating,'' Tim Sparks, president of Compensia, an executive compensation consulting firm told the San Jose Mercury News. — PTI