No company is immune to this story. From Cnet:
Employee complaints aren’t exactly piling up about Google’s generous stock grant policies, which have helped create an estimated 1,000 new millionaires, on paper at least. But the SEC filings have struck something of a nerve inside the company by offering an unusually candid look into the wealth of co-workers. That’s creating unaccustomed tensions inside a workplace that has long projected an image of collegial egalitarianism to the outside world, some people said….
…The culture has reflected that kind of college-kid humility, with its hallmark lava lamps, colored balls and on-campus free food. Many Google employees outwardly project the role of starry-eyed believers, carrying the ideal of a grand mission in the mold of early Apple Computer days.
A soaring share price won’t necessarily destroy such ideals, but it also won’t necessarily help sustain them.
How so? Really only impacts staff level employees who have restricted shares, which is pretty unusual.
It seems Merrill Lynch is making a rating based on something they know all to well, the effects of wealth and power on the psyche.
Google might have to figure out a fun way to filter out potential employees who can’t seem to transcend the gap between rich and poor.