Everything Google touches turns to gold, including those who touch Google in … ah … yes … right there … that’s tight … just the right way.
Here’s the rub from this morning’s New York Times:
Bonnie Brown was fresh from a nasty divorce in 1999, living with her sister and uncertain of her future. On a lark, she answered an ad for an in-house masseuse at Google, then a Silicon Valley start-up with 40 employees. She was offered the part-time job, which started out at $450 a week but included a pile of Google stock options that she figured might never be worth a penny.
After five years of kneading engineers’ backs, Ms. Brown retired, cashing in most of her stock options, which were worth millions of dollars. To her delight, the shares she held onto have continued to balloon in value.
Ah, 1999 … a time when any 40-person Valley startup worth its options felt no qualms about hiring an in-house masseuse.
It’s well known that Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are worth tens of billions, of course, and, even though relatively late to the party, no one will need to hold a bake-sale for CEO Eric Schmidt. What may surprise some, though, is that an estimate 5,000 people – including the nimble-fingered Bonnie Brown – have accumulated Google stock worth $5 million or more.
Little wonder, what with the price of one share and all.
Be it buying their way onto a NASA landing strip or serving up workplace chow that would be the envy of Julie Child, these tales of Google riches grow ever more audacious and improbable as the company continues to redefine the term meteoric rise.
That those running the company find themselves in hot water on an almost daily basis and around the globe is, well, a small price to pay, one would assume.
As for Bonnie Brown? She’s retired now and on the receiving end of any massages in which she’s involved.
