Google employees are leaving! Recruit them while they’re hot!
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Less than three years after going public, Google is confronting one of the more confounding consequences of its phenomenal success: a potential brain drain if its earliest � and richest � employees quit after earning the right to cash in the last of the stock options that made them millionaires.
Hundreds of the 2,300 Googlers hired before the Internet juggernaut’s initial public offering (IPO) in August 2004 are hitting their fourth anniversary.
When they do, they’ll be free to cash in the final portions of their pre-IPO options, collectively worth an estimated $2.6 billion before taxes.
So far, the exodus has been limited to a “handful of people,” said Stacy Savides Sullivan, Google’s chief culture officer and a 43-year-old pre-IPO millionaire herself.
“We anticipated more because we think it would only be natural,” she said. “We worry every day about this and hope we can stay ahead of it.”
Senior executives have viewed this problem as a significant risk.
3 Responses to “Google employees are leaving! Recruit them while they’re hot!”
By William on Apr 13, 2007 | Reply
Deep breaths everybody… Let’s grab a lemonade and consider a few things about this inevitable reality that was first mentioned in the San Jose Mercury News this past Sunday:
1) Google is experiencing what every other company that remains (wildly) successful four years after their IPO
2) Google has been aware of this rest-and-vest mindset and will do every logical thing to retain and motivate it’s key talent: both monetary and non-monetary.
3) Should you have the fortune of interviewing a Google employee, you will realize that they have expectations about what products/technologies, environments, roles and (even more likely) compensation than you and I have seen in the general marketplace
4) In addition they aren’t in a rush to make a decision. Your timing won’t necessarily be theirs. They can afford to be selective or whimsical.
So Jim would probably agree that in one sense the first group of people truly leaving Google will needed to be treated differently but you still need to do your good due diligence as with any other candidate.
Personally, I’m interested in seeing what the departures will do to affect the ever-changing business and talent landscape. Best of luck folks!