Google Paid Its Car Engineers So Much That They Quit

Google’s self-driving car project was spun off as a separate division called Waymo not too long ago. The company has been working on this project for a very long time and even though Waymo has not actually come out with an actual self-driving car, it has reached key milestones along the way. According to a new report, Waymo suffered from a brain drain issue because Google was paying the engineers so much that they eventually had enough money to give up a job at Google.

Bloomberg reports that engineers at Waymo were paid such high salaries and bonuses that they eventually had enough money in the bank to quit their jobs. The “unusual compensation system” was reportedly based on Waymo’s ability to reach its milestones and not Google’s success.

Employee bonuses and equity were reportedly multiplied as much as 16 in one case, which put their annual compensation in millions of dollars. Employees reportedly had a name for this level of compensation: “f—- you money,” and it was too much even by Google’s standards.

Some of the employees at Waymo left to start their own companies like a self-driving trucking company called Otto that was acquired by Uber and Argo AI, which recently received a $1 billion investment from Ford. Google has now taken some steps to address this.

Newer employees are reportedly being compensated on a more conventional system, one in which they won’t see their bonuses being multiplied by 16.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General
Tags: Google, Waymo