Maybe Google is seen as a bit faceless usually - just bubbles and primary colours - but the revelation that its on-site masseuse Bonnie Brown made a fortune from her share options has captured more than its fair share of column pixels.
Brown told the New York Times how she was suffering the fallout of nasty divorce in 1999 and living with her sister when she started working part-time at Google as a $450-per week masseuse. Oh, and she got some share options too.
Five years later and Brown has just sold her shares for millions, buying a 3,000-square-foot house in Nevada, setting up her own charity - and paying for a weekly massage and private Pilates tutor.
It's a fascinating insight into the enviable Silicon Valley world, and a classic massage-to-riches story. But Brown is just one of the lucky Googlers: an estimated 1,000 people have Google stock options, valued at $5m each.
Founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page both have around $20bn (that's a lot of shoes), and a three other big Google executives have $160m between them. Even in Silicon Valley terms, Google's growth has been stratospheric. Just ten years old, the company's shares peaked at $747 each last week, before dropping to $632.07 this trading week as Wall Street's wobbles started to be felt.
ITV shares, meanwhile, plunged to an all-time low of 87.60p at the same time, but let's not be unkind.
Source: New York Times
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