Money isn’t important! Take it from Google’s multimillionaire CEO | Arwa Mahdawi

What's more annoying than a very rich boss cutting his staff's benefits? A very rich boss announcing it shouldn't stop them having fun

Grab your tiniest violin: Google, once known for its lavish work perks, is slashing its fun budget. Employees can no longer jet off on as many jollies as they used to and are going to have to dramatically scale back their Christmas parties. The cost-cutting hasn't gone down well with Google staff, who confronted the CEO, Sundar Pichai, at a recent company-wide meeting. Why was Google nickel-and-diming" them, Pichai was asked, when the company had record profits and huge cash reserves"?

Pichai's response was: I hope all of you are reading the news." Because the news, you may have noticed, isn't great right now. After briefly talking about macroeconomic conditions, Pichai couldn't resist moralising. I remember when Google was small and scrappy," the multimillionaire, who earned $6.3m (5.8m) in pay last year, said. We shouldn't always equate fun with money. I think you can walk into a hard-working startup and people may be having fun and it shouldn't always equate to money."