Google having a hard time keeping car project veterans due to too generous incentive scheme

In a new article, Bloomberg takes a look at one of the factors why Google's car project lost so much talent over the past year. Among other things, one of the key reasons why a lot of self-driving car veterans are leaving is because they were enrolled in an unusual compensation scheme that awarded supersized payouts based on the project's value.

The system was designed to tie employees' fortunes to the success of the project, to motivate them to make it work. Exact specifics aren't know but after certain milestones were hit, employees qualified for increasingly larger payouts, despite the project still being far from the ultimate goal of providing fully self-driving vehicles to the public.

As a result of the generous incentive scheme, a lot of early employees of the project are now wealthy enough that they no longer need the job security of working at Google, and can pursue other opportunities like kicking off their own startup.

Early staffers had an unusual compensation system that awarded supersized payouts based on the project's value. By late 2015, the numbers were so big that several veteran members didn't need the job security anymore, making them more open to other opportunities, according to people familiar with the situation. Two people called it "F-you money."

In December, the car unit morphed into a standalone business called Waymo, and the system was replaced with a more uniform pay structure that treats all employees the same, according to a person familiar with the situation. Still, the original program got so costly that a top executive at parent Alphabet Inc. highlighted it last year to explain a jump in expenses. A spokeswoman for Alphabet, the holding company that owns Google and "Other Bets" like the autonomous car business, declined to comment.

Further details can be read at Bloomberg.