LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner Is Passing His $14 Million Stock Grant to Employees

The SEC documents summarized the compensation packages for LinkedIn execs, but one top exec's name was missing from the filings.

What happened?LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner has chosen to voluntarily forfeit his 2016 annual equity compensation and will donate the shares back to the rest of LinkedIn's employees, according to Reuters.

To put the size of Weiner's stock gift to LinkedIn's employees in perspective: The $14 million amount is about $2.6 million more than the $11.4 million that Golden State Warriors All-Universe guard Stephen Curry will make this year.

The decision comes almost a month after LinkedIn released a disappointing holiday quarter earnings report, which prompted skittish investors to abandon the stock, effectively cutting the company's market value in half in a matter of days.

Weiner recently held an all-hands meeting to assure employees the company's stock value will recover.

Weiner wants to keep employees happy, and giving up his own stock options may help with that. The CEO reportedly asked that the stock package meant for him be put into the bonus pool for all employees. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey pulled a similar trick before back in October, when he gave away his $200 million equity grant to employees following deteriorating stock price and company-wide layoffs. Mr. Weiner owns about 105,924 shares in the company, along with 480,000 vested shares that have a total net worth of $70.2 million.

The motivational speech and bonus giveaway are notable reminders that stock prices are more than just vanity metrics for prominent technology companies, despite the usual talking point that executives and employees try to ignore the fluctuations and stay "heads down". So this stock redistribution could be seen as a way to ensure staff that things aren't all bad (the shares have yet to recover).