Google CEO made nearly $200 million last year

Google CEO Sundar Pichai received nearly $199.7 million in compensation last year, double the amount he made in 2015, according to a filing Friday from Google’s parent company, Alphabet( GOOGL , Tech30). Pichai’s base pay was a mere $650,000. On top of that, he received a stock award for $198.7 million. The company’s compensation committee attributed the lavish pay to Pichai’s promotion to CEO and “numerous successful product launches.” Pichai, a longtime Google executive, took over as CEO as part of a corporate restructuring in 2015. Larry Page, Google’s cofounder and previous CEO, shifted his focus to growing new businesses under the Alphabet umbrella. Related: Google cofounder’s ‘flying car’ makes its debut Under Pichai, Google has boosted sales from its core advertising and YouTube business, while also investing in machine learning, hardware and cloud computing. In 2016, Google unveiled new smartphones, a virtual reality headset, a router, and a voice contro...