Google CFO Gets $70M for Leaving Wall St.

If Google paid its employees in gold, Ruth Porat would be getting more than 3,500 pounds of it for leaving Morgan Stanley to join the company. Instead, she's getting more than $70 million in stock bonuses and cash to become Google's new chief financial officer, reports the Wall Street Journal, which notes that the $30 million the native Californian will receive this year alone is more than her old boss on Wall Street makes, unless he got a significant raise from his 2013 earnings of $18 million. According to Google, Porat will receive $650,000 in base pay this year, a $5 million signing bonus, and a $25 million stock grant, which will be followed by a $40 million stock grant next year.

Porat's move is part of what Forbes describes as an "apparent brain drain from Wall Street to Silicon Valley," with the moves westward helped by the tech giants' large stockpiles of compensation options, which can be used to pay bonuses without the same scrutiny Wall Street firms receive. Google investors appear to believe Porat is worth the money: Shares jumped 2% this week after her hiring was announced, and investors hope she can bring "a more disciplined approach to expenses" to the company, according to the Journal. (In completely different Google news, the company might be planning a high-tech deodorant.)