eBay paid (page 6) $75m in stock based compensation in the last quarter, and $317m for the year. That’s 5.4% of Gross Profit or 4.3% of revenues. It must be wonderful to have a company with margins like that.
With the 12,600 employees in 2005 that would be $25,000 in options granted this year per two year tenured person – which is about right as long as almost everyone is getting a piece of the pie.
Somehow I doubt that, as CEO Meg Whitman has 22m shares, worth about $660m and founder Pierre Omyindar has 190m shares worth about 5.7bn. With total insider ownership at 233m shares, that means there are 21m shares for all of the other insiders. Those 21m shares divided amongst the 12,600 tenured employees gives 1667 shares each, or about $50,000. Again that number is an average, with sharp skews at the top and bottom ends.
Lance Wiggs 