Google veteran Nikesh Arora becomes a billionaire

Nikesh Arora, an electric engineering graduate from IIT-BHU, who became the highest-paid executive at search giant Google, has now joined the billionaires club thanks to the huge payout from his current employer.

Cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks Inc handed Arora, 55, a $125 million stock and options compensation package when he was hired as chief executive officer in 2018.

Thanks to a boom in cybersecurity software after a series of high-profile hacking incidents that disrupted casinos, ports and even Treasury markets, the company’s share price has more than quadrupled since then — and Arora’s stake is now worth $830 million, according to Bloomberg.

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Combined with enormous pay awards he secured earlier in his career, Arora’s net worth stands at $1.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That makes him a rare non-founder billionaire tech CEO.

The bulk of Arora’s stake in Palo Alto Networks relates to more than 3.4 million options he was awarded upon joining the firm. Those were subject to meeting share-price targets, all of which have now been achieved including the highest goal: a 300% gain.

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Arora sold nearly $300 million worth of shares in 2023 after exercising some of the options.

He is primed to continue building his fortune at Palo Alto Networks. Arora’s 2023 compensation includes a maximum of 750,000 stock awards that vest upon the achievement of certain performance conditions, which would currently be worth more than $220 million, according to Bloomberg.

In its proxy statement, the company wrote the award was justified because Arora’s strong performance over his first five years meant he’d already been able to vest “$102 million of value each year.”

“Because of this significant vested ownership and the amount that Mr. Arora was projected to vest in over the next several years, the Board determined that a meaningful equity award would be necessary to ensure that such award retains and engages Mr. Arora,” it added.

At Google, Arora became the firm’s highest-paid executive after getting a compensation package worth about $51 million in 2012, on his way to collecting stock awards worth at least $200 million by the time he left.

Moving to SoftBank Group in 2014, he amassed a $135 million first-year compensation package that broke Japanese records and made him the world’s best-paid executive.

Arora was born in Ghaziabad near Delhi. His father was an Indian Air Force officer and he completed his schooling at The Air Force School.

After graduating in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), BHU, Varanasi, he moved to the US to study at Boston University. He also has an MBA from Northeastern University.

He initiated his professional journey at Fidelity Investments in 1992, where he took on several roles in finance and technology management. His tenure culminated in the role of Vice President of Finance at Fidelity Technologies. He also worked at T-Motion for a few years before joining Google.