Google options make masseuse a multimillionaire

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...

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 engineers8217; backs, 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.

8220;I8217;m happy I saved enough stock for a rainy day, and lately it8217;s been pouring,8221; said Brown, 52, who now lives in a 3,000-square-foot house in Nevada, gets her own massages at least once a week and has a private Pilates instructor. She has travelled the world to oversee a charitable foundation she started with her Google wealth and has written a book, still unpublished, 8220;Giigle: How I Got Lucky Massaging Google.8221;

When Google8217;s stock topped 700 a share last week before dropping back to 664 on Friday, outside shareholders were not the only ones smiling. According to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Google employees and former employees are holding options they can cash in worth about 2.1 billion. In addition, current employees are sitting on stock and unvested options, or options they cannot immediately cash in, that together have a value of about 4.1 billion.

Although no one keeps an official count of Google millionaires, it is estimated that 1,000 people each have more than 5 million worth of Google shares from stock grants and stock options.

One founder, Larry Page, has stock worth 20 billion. The other, Sergey Brin, has 19.6 billion, according to Equilar, an executive compensation research firm. Three Google senior vice presidents are together are holding 160 million worth of Google stock and options.

8220;This is a very rare phenomenon when one company so quickly becomes worth so much money,8221; said Peter Hero, senior adviser to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. 8220;During the boom times, there were lots of companies whose employees made a lot of money fast, like Yahoo and Netscape. But the scale didn8217;t approach Google.8221;

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Indeed, Google has seemed to exist in its own microclimate, with its shares climbing even as other technology stocks have been buffeted by investor skittishness. The stock touched an all-time high of 747.24 on Tuesday before falling more than 83 a share during the week to close at 663.97 on Friday. But even after that sell-off, the stock has risen more than 44 percent, or 203 a share, this year.

The days are long gone when people like Brown were handed thousands of Google options with the exercise price, or the pre-determined price that employees would pay to buy the stock, set in pennies. Nearly half of the 16,000 employees now at Google have been there for a year or less, and their options have an average exercise price of more than 500. But those who started at the company a year ago, or even three months ago, are seeing their options soar in value.

Several Google employees interviewed for this article say they do not watch the dizzying climb of the company8217;s shares. When it comes to awareness of the stock price, they say, Google is different from other large high-tech companies where they have worked, like Microsoft, where the day8217;s stock price is a fixture on many people8217;s computer screens.

At Google, the sensibility is more nuanced, they say. 8220;It isn8217;t considered 8216;Googley8217; to check the stock price,8221; said an engineer, using the Google jargon for what is acceptable in the company8217;s culture. Others admit that, when gathered around the espresso machine it is hard to avoid the topic of their sudden windfalls. The rise in Google8217;s stock is affecting the deepest reaches of the company. The number of options granted to new employees at Google usually depends on the position and the salary level at which the employee is hired, and the value is usually based on the price of the stock at the start of employment.

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The average options grant for a new Google employee 8212; or 8220;Noogler8221; 8212; who started in November 2006 was 685 shares at a price of roughly 475 a share. They also would have received, on average, 230 shares of stock outright that will vest over a number of years. The Nooglers might not be talking about second homes in Aspen or personal jets, but they are talking about down payments on a first home, new cars and kitchen renovations. Internal online discussion groups about personal finance are closely read.