B is for 'bizarre': Google's very strange first annual shareholder meeting as Alphabet
The question-and-answer session kicked off with concerns from one investor about windmills "chopping birds up into little pieces" and ended with employees running around to buy hats for the audience.
But it was really the whiff of casual sexism that tipped the event over the edge.
Welcome to Google in 2016. On Wednesday, the Internet giant held its first annual shareholders meeting since officially creating a new parent company called Alphabet.
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There should have been no shortage of issues for Google investors to discuss: The recent exit of the CEO of Nest, two and a half years after Google bought it for $3.2 billion in cash. Concerns about the strategy and execution of its newly created life sciences division -- and what both points show about Alphabet's restructuring, appetite for risk-taking and cost-cutting.
Or...
"My first question is to the lady CFO," one investor in attendance began, before rattling off a question about the stock price.
The "lady CFO" in question is Ruth Porat, who was one of the most powerful executives on Wall Street before joining Google last year and has been working to reign in Google's expenses as it restructured into Alphabet -- but yes, she is also a lady.
The investor's statement went mostly unacknowledged until another shareholder spoke up several minutes later: "She is CFO, not the lady CFO."
That prompted a short monologue on diversity from executive chairman and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
"Speaking as your male executive chairman, I celebrate the others who are male and female in our company," he said. "We work so closely together it doesn’t even occur to us. And thats the best kind of diversity."
Google/Alphabet is pushing to connect the world to the Internet through giant floating balloons and working on ways to extend human life, but at least some of its shareholders are still figuring out how to address a woman in a position of power.
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To be sure, shareholder meetings are known to be cringe-worthy affairs -- all the more so if a woman is on the stage, as Marissa Mayer learned in 2013 when a shareholder tried to hit on her.
Even before the "lady CFO" moment, the shareholder meeting got off to a strange start.
"I thought we were going to get a cute little bag or cap or mug," one investor said early on, apparently referring to a lack of free swag for investors in attendance. "Can you bring it back?"
Sure, Wall Street criticized Google for years for unchecked and unreported spending on its moonshot projects -- a criticism that effectively led to the creation of Alphabet and Porat's hiring. But investors still want their free stuff!
Fortunately Google ended the session on a positive note: they had an employee rush out to buy 100 Alphabet hats for the audience. Problem. Solved.
Maybe as the Alphabet investors rushed out to grab their free hats, they took a moment to think about the new Google. The one holding shareholder meetings without either of the cofounders present. The one diverse enough to have an Indian-born CEO and a "lady CFO" on stage together. The one that now talks publicly about requiring team leaders to think about the bottom line and not just shooting for the moon.
Then again, maybe not. I mean, free hats, right?
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Topics Google
Seth Fiegerman was a Senior Business Reporter at Mashable, where he covered startups, marketing and the latest consumer tech trends. He joined Mashable in August 2012 and is based in New York.Before joining Mashable, Seth covered all things Apple as a reporter at Silicon Alley Insider, the tech section of Business Insider. He has also worked as a staff writer at TheStreet.com and as an editor at Playboy Magazine. His work has appeared in Newsweek, NPR, Kiplinger, Portfolio and The Huffington Post.Seth received his Bachelor of Arts from New York University, where he majored in journalism and philosophy.In his spare time, Seth enjoys bike riding around Brooklyn and writing really bad folk songs.
