If it turns out to be true, I will probably sell my Google stock. I'd always felt that it was a pretty safe holding, but any company that could piss away money like that is not one I want to hold.
More to the point, it's not your dividend they're taking, it's a direct dilution of the value of your shareholding. A small tax levied on all other shareholders.
If that's what we're worth in economic terms then that's what we should be paid. I'm all for rumors like this because I want to be paid for value. Should Lebron James work for free because he's playing a friggin' game for a living or should he be getting hundreds of millions of dollars because that's just a fraction of the revenue he generates?
The analogy is flawed. I'm not a basketball fan, but it sounds like James is the best living basketball player. No one else can do his job. You're claiming the same is true of a couple of mid-level product managers at Google? I don't buy it.
