"Google’s Eric Schmidt received $125 million in 2011"

Schmidt received a bump in his salary after
completing a decade in Google's top role: Reuters

Google’s Eric Schmidt received a bump in his annual salary to $1.25 million from the $1 he received in the previous year, after he became the executive chairman of the company in April 2011.

Schmidt’s total compensation last year swelled to $101 million thanks to a previously announced equity award granted when he ended a 10-year stint in the top job at Google, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

Schmidt ranked as the most highly compensated Google executive in 2011 by a long shot, earning more than four times the compensation of Google’s next highest-paid executive.

Google co-founder Larry Page, who took the CEO reins from Schmidt, and co-founder Sergey Brin each received a $1 base salary in 2011, the same salary they have received every year since 2004. Including holiday bonuses, the two co-founders each received a total compensation of $1,786 in 2011.

The two co-founders each have a large portion of their personal wealth tied directly to Google’s stock.

As part of Schmidt’s move to his new executive chairman role last year, Google said that it was giving him a $100 million equity award comprised of stock and stock options. The fair equity value of the award was actually $93.8 million at the time it was awarded, according to the proxy statement.

The award vests over a four year period, but Google reported the award in the year in which it was granted.

His compensation includes base salary, a bonus and other benefits.

Schmidt helped transform Google into the world’s largest search engine, generating roughly $38 billion in revenue last year.

Google’s Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora was the second highest-paid executive at Google in 2011, with a total compensation of $23.2 million, up from $22.6 million the year before.