Google’s offer letter to its new CFO…
Yesterday, Google (GOOG) announced that it had hired a new CFO, 10 months after George Reyes announced his plans to retire. As a result, most of the coverage, including this post from the LA Times’ technology blog, focused on how long it took Google to find Bell Canada executive Patrick Pichette. We’ll ignore for the time being that Canadian accounting rules are somewhat different from GAAP. Still, there have to be quite a few American CFOs who are a bit jealous of Pichette this morning.
But far more interesting was Pichette’s offer letter which provided some interesting details about life inside the Googleplex and based on a quick search, appears to be the first time Google has included one of these letters in their SEC filings.
Among the things that people were speculating over yesterday was Pichette’s background in telecom — at Bell Canada he was director of operations — and Google is working on its own mobile phone platform called Android. And while CFOs don’t typically focus on new products, Pichette’s letter specifically states that
“You are being offered employment at Google based on your personal skills and experience, and not due to your knowledge of any confidential, proprietary or trade secret information of a prior or current employer. Should you accept this offer, we do not want you to make use of or disclose any such information or to retain or disclose any materials from a prior or current employer.
There was also this interesting tidbit that Google requires all of its employees: “to read and sign the At Will Employment, Confidential Information, Invention Assignment and Arbitration Agreement as a condition of employment with Google” and that the arbitration agreement must be signed on the first day of work.
Finally, at the end of the letter, which was dated June 6, Google gives Pichette 7 days business days to accept, before the offer is revoked. But Pichette wasted no time and didn’t keep the company guessing. According to the letter, it was signed the same day it arrived.
RSS
June 26th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
All the highlighted excerpts from Mr. Pichette’s offer letter are standard legal clauses used by many American companies when extending an offer for an employment. There is nothing “interesting,” or unusual about them.
June 26th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
While I’m not an attorney, I’ve read quite a few employment contracts/hiring letters and while some of the language in this hiring letter is boiler-plate, much of it is unique to Google. Not to mention the fact that this is the first time Google has included a hiring letter in its SEC filings. That alone makes it somewhat unique.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
If you want an alternative view of Google, especially of how Google makes it money, you could try the http://WWW.FUCKEDGOOGLE.com
the blog owner has many things to say about click fraud, the yahoo take over and the reason why it took so long to find a replacement CFO
john
October 4th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Well, all I can say is that employment legislation and standards in the US are very different from Mr. Pichette’s home country, namely Canada. There is no such thing as “at will” employment in Canada (thankfully). Everyone deserves some financial security in their employment, even those that carry a base salary in excess of $400k! All that aside, I’m sure he’ll be very successful in his new role. He did a bang up job while working at Bell. One key correction to this article - he was actually “president” of network operations at Bell Canada prior to leaving, slightly different than a “director” - by about $300k!