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Brian Reid says he was fired from Google for being "too old." A profile of Reid in the Sydney Morning Herald notes that he "lost an annual salary of $200,000 and stock options which today would have been worth over $60 million." Quick background: Reid was a high-level manager working directly below the top level. Google says he was let go because the program he was in charge of was terminated. Reid says that he was fired for being old and that age discrimination is a systematic problem at Google. A statistician at UC Davis agrees, saying older employees got smaller bonuses and worse performance reviews. But how bad off, really, is Reid?


According to the appeals court ruling that allowed his case to continue, Reid received 12,750 stock options during his 20-month employment. At $600 per share, those would be worth just over $7.6 million. If only we all were so discriminated against.