Google boss becomes highest-paid in US

The chief executive of Google, Sundar Pichai, has been awarded $199m (£138m) in shares, a regulatory filing has revealed.

It makes him the highest-paid chief executive in the US.

Mr Pichai became chief executive of the search engine giant following the creation of its parent, Alphabet.

The founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have amassed fortunes of $34.6bn and $33.9bn, according to Forbes.

Mr Pichai, 43, was awarded 273,328 Alphabet shares on 3 February, worth a total of $199m, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The new award of shares takes Mr Pichai's total stock value to approximately $650m.

Mr Pichai's share award will vest incrementally each quarter until 2019. In other words, full control over the shares will pass to him on a gradual basis.

The Google chief executive joined the company since 2004, initially leading product management on a number of Google's client software products, including Google Chrome] and Chrome OS, as well as being largely responsible for Google Drive. He also oversaw the development of Gmail and Google Maps.

He previously worked in engineering and product management at Applied Materials and as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.

It comes at a time of heightened scrutiny of Google's tax affairs, following the company's deal with HM Revenue & Customs to pay back taxes dating from 2005.

The controversial tax deal was labelled derisory by Labour. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell called for greater transparency, saying it looked like a "sweetheart deal".

"HMRC seems to have settled for a relatively small amount in comparison with the overall profits that are made by the company in this country. And some of the independent analysts have argued that it should be at least 10 times this amount," he said.

Google's regulatory filings for for the period 2005 to 2014, show it generated sales of £24bn ($34.6bn) in the UK during the period with an estimated profit of about £7.2bn on those sales. Page 83 of its most recent 10k report states "revenues by geography are based on the billing addresses of our customers".

Last week, Alphabet - Google's parent company - surpassed Apple as the world's most valuable firm after it reported a profit of $4.9bn (£3.4bn) in the three months to the end of December, an increase from $4.7bn a year ago.

On an annual basis, Alphabet made $16.3bn, but the figures showed that the "Other Bets" business lost $3.6bn during the period, while Google's operating income rose to $23.4bn, as online advertising increased.

Correction: An earlier version of this story included a table featuring a list of highest-paid CEOs in the US that had figures from 2012, not 2015 as stated.

Twitter is making two major changes to the way its users' timelines appear.

Twitter is making two major changes to the way its users' timelines appear.

The app will show a selection of prioritised tweets, based on what it thinks users are "most likely to care about", ahead of the normal list of posts shown in reverse chronological order.

And a new First View feature will let marketers place a video ad high up in the feeds.

The announcements came ahead of the company's latest financial results.

They are designed to make users more engaged with the platform and appeal to advertisers.

But one expert said the extra prominence Twitter was giving to video ads might backfire.

"The reason why Facebook has been so successful of late is that it has been able to put sponsored posts and videos into people's feeds," commented Richard Holway, chairman of the TechMarketView consultancy.

"But Twitter is a different affair as people typically spend a much shorter time looking at each post, and putting intrusive videos at the top of their feeds, making it more cluttered, is going to upset a lot of people."

Mass awareness

Unlike normal ads on the platform - which algorithms target at specific users - a First View video will be shown to everyone within a region or country who uses Twitter over a 24-hour period.

That makes it a potentially more effective way to build mass awareness of a product over a short period of time.

But another company watcher also expressed doubts about the idea based on the examples Twitter had posted online.

"The whole point of in-feed ads is that they should seamlessly roll through and not interrupt your experience," said Sarah Vizard, Marketing Week's news editor.

"Brands will love [First View] as it sits across the top of the page and everyone will see it, but for the users themselves, they will think: 'It takes over most of the feed. I came here to see what the people I follow are posting and to find information, and to get to that I now have to clear the ad.'"

Twitter results

Twitter is due to post its full year's earnings after the US markets close.

The loss-making firm's shares are trading about 69% lower than where they were a year ago, partly because of concerns that its number of users is not growing fast enough.

Last month the Recode news site reported that the service had cut the number of ads being shown to some of its most active users as part of an effort to keep them engaged.

More recently, the hashtag #RIPTwitter began trending on the service after Buzzfeed reported that the platform planned to change the order tweets were presented in.

The firm has since clarified that a toggle switch in its app's settings will allow the new function to be turned on and off.

If left selected, the "never miss important tweets" setting will affect up to the first 60 tweets shown at the top of a timeline.

If the user pulls to refresh the feed, it will return to its normal reverse-chronological ordered state.

Twitter said that users would see an on-screen prompt to alert them to the feature the first time they encountered it.

"No matter how much time you spend on Twitter, you probably feel like you've missed important tweets from accounts you follow," it said.

"We hear this from people every day. As a content consumer, the new Home timeline feature will help you catch up on tweets you don't want to miss from the people and topics you care about.

"As a content creator, it means your followers are more likely to see and engage with your best tweets. We've already noticed that people who have used this new feature tend to retweet and tweet more."

The firm's chief executive Jack Dorsey is expected to be quizzed about the expected impact of both the new changes during a conference call with analysts following its earnings announcement.

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Yahoo is cutting 15% of its workforce

Yahoo is cutting 15% of its workforce as the company pursues an "aggressive strategic plan" to return to profitability.

The job cuts will reduce the number of its employees to about 9,000 by the end of 2016.

The announcement came as Yahoo reported a $4.3bn (£3bn) loss for the year.

In a statement, chief executive Marissa Mayer said: "This is a strong plan calling for bold shifts in products and in resources."

She added that it would "dramatically brighten our future and improve our competitiveness, and attractiveness to users, advertisers, and partners."

The head-count reduction is the latest part of Ms Mayer's attempt to turn around the troubled internet company, which is struggling to compete against the likes of Facebook and Google.

Cost-cutting

In December, the company announced it was reversing a plan to sell its stake in the Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba, and would instead look to spin off its core internet business.

Ms Mayer was forced to change course on the Alibaba sale following pressure from several activist investors.

The focus on cutting costs and raising profits is being seen as the latest sign that the company is becoming more serious about selling its core internet business.

But some analysts are sceptical.

"They can slim down to improve profitability, but they are in an industry that is growing and they're not," said Martin Pyykkonen, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities.

"If the core business was really a valuable asset someone would have come and tried to buy it already," he added.

Under pressure

As well as shedding much of its workforce, Yahoo plans to sell of some of its product lines - such as Yahoo TV and Yahoo Games - so that it can focus on its search business, email and Tumblr blogging site.

It is also closing offices in Dubai, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Madrid, and Milan.

That should lead to "modest and accelerating growth in 2017 and 2018," the company said.

Yahoo has estimated the cutting back of its product line alone could generate $1bn.

Ms Mayer has been under pressure from investors to step down as chief executive.

"We would like to see a higher stock price, and we think Marissa and her current management team have become a hindrance to that," said Eric Jackson, managing director of SpringOwl.

Yahoo's shares fell 1.4% in after hours trading.