The founders of the company still have a controlling stake in the business. External shareholders have little leverage.
Going public gave Google a lot of nearly-free money to grow, and it's how you've gotten both Gmail and Google+. But more importantly, it allowed them to offer much higher total comp packages by issuing more stock on the go. I think they're prisoners of the stock market only insofar that if the stock stops going up, they're gonna have a harder time hiring and retaining talent.
In a way, it's the employees holding the company hostage. They're simultaneously complaining about innocence lost and stating their implicit preference for this outcome by demanding top-of-the-line comp.
If you want to be paid the same as at Microsoft or Facebook, you become Microsoft or Facebook.
> Going public gave Google a lot of nearly-free money to grow, and it's how you've gotten ... Gmail
And in retrospect, was that really a good thing? Short-term, yes - I remember how much better it was than the alternatives. Long-term, we ended up in a situation where email = GMail for most users, and this in turn gives Google undue leverage and strangles competition.
Going public gave Google a lot of nearly-free money to grow, and it's how you've gotten both Gmail and Google+. But more importantly, it allowed them to offer much higher total comp packages by issuing more stock on the go. I think they're prisoners of the stock market only insofar that if the stock stops going up, they're gonna have a harder time hiring and retaining talent.
In a way, it's the employees holding the company hostage. They're simultaneously complaining about innocence lost and stating their implicit preference for this outcome by demanding top-of-the-line comp.
If you want to be paid the same as at Microsoft or Facebook, you become Microsoft or Facebook.