Google Makes Rich Myth: Masseuse Becomes A Billionaire

Google made the ordinary people lucky. Bonnie Brown ended a bad marriage in 1999, and lived with her sister. She was confused about her future. (Boni Brown)

When she was bored with her leisure time, she saw an advertisement. A small company named Google recruited a masseur with a salary of $450 a week, including some stock options.

Brown accepted the part-time job, though she thought the stock options might be worthless, because Google was just a newly established enterprise with only 40 employees.

Brown worked for five years in the company, then resigned and fulfilled most of the stock options. At that time, she was already rich in millions of dollars.

To her delight, her stock of Google is still rising, and her wealth is constantly expanding.

"I am glad that I have left a lot of stocks to cope with the unexpected needs," said 52, who is delighted at the time.

Brown now lives in a mansion in Nevada, at least once a week to massage - let others massage themselves.

She has travelled all over the world, and now leads a fairly comfortable life.

It is not just her who has benefited from Google's rise, but Google's share price has soared.

Last week, Google's shares jumped to $700, and Friday's pullback to $664 made many investors cheering, and Google employees were part of it.

A document submitted by Google on Wednesday to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed that the stock options held by Google's employees and former employees would be worth $2 billion 100 million if they were exercised.

In addition, Google's existing employees also hold a considerable number of shares and unexpired stock options, which are worth 4 billion 100 million US dollars.

Despite the fact that no one has ever made statistics on Google's millionaires, it is estimated that about 1000 people have Google stock of more than 5 million US dollars. These shares come from the company's distribution and exercise options and are not purchased from the open market.

According to data from Equilar, executive compensation research firm, Larry Page, one of Google's founders, has a stock market value of about $20 billion, while another founder Sergio Brin (Sergey Brin) has a stock market value of $19 billion 600 million. Larry Larry

David Drummond, the three senior vice president of Google, David (Google), Sonal Brown (Shona Brown) and Jonathan Rosenberg (Jonathan Rosenberg) have a total of $160 million worth of Google stock and options.

Peter Hero, a senior consultant at the Silicon Valley community foundation, said: "it is very rare that the price of an enterprise has soared so rapidly."

In the age of Internet bubble, YAHOO and Netscape have also created many millionaire employees, but they are not the same size as Google.

Indeed, Google seems to be completely independent of technology stocks.

Even when other technology stocks encountered unrelenting selling by investors, Google's share price continued to rise all the way.

On Tuesday, Google's stock hit a record high of $747.24, followed by a sharp correction of $83, closing Friday to $663.97.

Even after the crash, Google has risen 203 this year, or up to 44%.

The opportunities and risks of the latecomers and the good luck like Brown are no longer there.

Brown initially acquired tens of thousands of Google options and exercised his options at predetermined prices. The price of the exercise was only a few dollars, which was almost negligible.

Now, nearly half of Google's employees are in office for less than a year, and their average price is as high as $500.

Even so, their wealth is expanding at an amazing speed.

In Google, the stock market is considered to be inconsistent with Google style, which is quite different from other companies.

Similarly, the discussion of personal wealth in Google is also disgraceful, though many people are hard pressed to suppress the ecstasy after being rich.

The rise of Google's stock price affects the number of options and the exercise price of employees.

After November 2006, the average number of new employees who enter the company can get 685 stock options at a price of $475.

In addition, they also get an average of $230 in unpaid options, which can only be exercised after a certain number of years.

New employees may not be able to talk about second houses or private planes, but they can talk about buying a first suite, buying new cars and kitchen renovation.

Google's internal discussion area has many topics about personal finance.

Like other Silicon Valley companies, Google also gives every new employee a certain amount of stock and options as an incentive.

But the high price of stocks makes this incentive sometimes taste bad.

A senior student at Stanford University, who joined Facebook recently, said Google's share price is too high. Maybe these options are not worth the time when they are exercising their rights.

The wealth created by Brown and Google has led people like this to have a free life.

Ron Galet (Ron Garret) was the 104th employee of Google. He worked for Google for more than a year and left Google in 2001.

Even so, after selling all the Google shares, he has become a venture capitalist, a philanthropist and a documentary producer.

"The rise in Google's share price has nothing to do with me. I'm just wondering how much it can go up."

This is probably a question that many people have to ask.