GM. This is Take Off. We're like your favorite cheat meal - indulgent, satisfying, and the perfect break from the daily grind.

Here's what we're serving up today:

• Sundar’s $226 Million PayDay 💰

• Twitter Blue Shenanigans Continue 🐦

• Lyft’s on a Bumpy Road 🚗🚧

Sundar’s $226 Million PayDay 💰

Well, well, well, look who's swimming in cash! Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai made a whopping $226 million in 2022, with most of it coming from stock holdings worth $218 million. Talk about a nice payday, huh?

Other execs at Alphabet also got pretty nice paychecks with the CBO making $37 million, while the CFO cashed in at around $24.5 million.

Meanwhile, the median pay for Alphabet employees is just under $280,000, making Pichai's salary over 800 times larger.

But this big payday comes right after Google's parent company decided to snip 12,000 jobs earlier this year, citing a sharp advertising slowdown.

CEO compensation has been a hot topic lately, with exec pay skyrocketing 1,460% since 1978. Apple CEO Tim Cook even cut his 2023 pay by 40% after shareholders criticized his $100 million earnings.

What’s your take on these ginormous compensations to top-execs at a time when employees are being laid off left, right and center?

Twitter Blue Shenanigans Continue 🐦

From blue to gold, Twitter's gone on a checkmark spree, and now they want advertisers to join the party.

Elon Musk, our favorite billionaire boy, has been dishing out the cash to verify celebs who aren't down with the pay-to-play. But if you're looking to advertise on Twitter, it looks like you're about to join the verified club or be left out in the cold.

So essentially Twitter’s asking you to pay them money to get the blue ticks so that you can then pay them money to advertise? Wait what?

Honestly, this whole situation seems like it's gonna scare away more advertisers than anything.

Twitter's saying it’s doing this to squash spam and kick out bad actors (Yeah right, money is just a by-product). But will an $8 monthly fee really keep the riff-raff out?

Lyft’s on a Bumpy Road 🚗🚧

The ride-sharing company is planning to cut at least 1,200 jobs, which could affect 30% of its 4,000-strong workforce. Rumor has it that these layoffs could help Lyft slash 50% of its costs.

This news comes hot on the heels of new CEO David Risher taking the wheel and after Lyft said "bye-bye" to around 700 employees late last year.

Lyft has had a tough time keeping up with big brother Uber, which gained market share and drivers during the pandemic.

While Uber diversified with food delivery and global operations, Lyft stuck to its North American transportation roots.

The sad truth is, Lyft's not alone in the layoff game. Over 170,000 people have lost their jobs at tech companies this year with roughly 4000 people getting laid off from Meta just last week with even more casualties to follow in May.

☄️ Asteroids ☄️

Elon Musk's 4/20 went up in “smoke” as he lost a mind-blowing $13 billion in a single day, thanks to SpaceX's Starship explosion, Tesla's disappointing Q1 results and his Twitter checkmark shenanigans. 🚀💥💸🤷‍♂️

Google's Bard AI chatbot is leveling up, now offering code generation, debugging, and explanations for software developers! 💻🤖 But remember, it's still an experiment, so don't be surprised if Bard confidently hands you a code that's a little "creative." 😅

AMD is stealthily arming a whole new battalion of Steam Deck competitors! With Zen 4 and RDNA 3 chips, these handhelds are ready to give Valve's darling a run for its money. 🎮🤖

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