The Chef who became a Millionaire with Google

Charlie Ayers is probably one of the luckiest chef who became a multi-millionaire with, hold your breath, a tech company. From earning $80,000 per year in Silicon Valley and switching to a new small tech startup Charlie became its executive chef. It sounds like an almost unbelievable story about a chef making a fortune in a tech company but its just another life touched by Google. However, he wasn’t just lucky as he worked hard and proved his mettle before the lady luck would shine upon him. So, let’s get to know the story of the Chef who became a Millionaire with Google.

Early Life Of Charlie Ayer

Charlie Ayer was born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn. He started his journey at the Hilton Hotel company and eventually attended culinary school in Rhode Island. He then got hired at a restaurant for preparing your basic pastas, steaks, chicken specials, etc. To explore more and work more, Charlie moved on to a series of fancier restaurants in the Boston area. He even worked in the preparing foods section of Whole Foods and even worked as a private chef for a few wealthy families.

Being a music lover, Charlie landed up preparing meals backstage at music festivals. Soon he got hired away to be the private exclusive chef for some very successful music groups such as The Grateful Dead. He was his own boss and was earning a pretty decent living by cooking meals for rock stars around the world. His friends and family were in total shock when he decided to quit the job and work for someone else.

Job At Google

In 1999, Charlie had an encounter with a pair of 26-year-old engineers from Stanford who totally stole his heart. The duo took him away from work at their then-unknown search engine called Google. Charlie was employee #56 at Google. Charlie was given a grant of options in Google.

The same year Google brought in just $220,000 in total revenues. Gradually year by year Google continued to grow both in employee count and revenue. In 2000, Google’s revenue skyrocketed from $220,000 to more than $19 million. By 2001 revenues jumped to $85 million. Google earned $430 million in 2002. In 2003, Google made $1.5 billion. The year 2004 saw Google going public and it made $3.2 billion that year.

Charlie Becoming A Multi-Millionaire.

As Google started to grow, Charlie contacted his accountants to learn more about “stock options”. The year when Google went public, Larry and Sergey weren’t the only two who became millionaires. At an opening price of $85 a share, Charlie’s 40,000 shares were worth $3.4 million.

The year 2005 when Charlie left Google, he opened his very own restaurant called “Calafia Café & Market” in Palo Alto and also released a cookbook called “Food 2.0: Secrets From The Chef Who Fed Google”. Even then Charlie didn’t sell a single share. By 2007, Charlie’s equity was worth more than $26 million. As of January 16, 2014, Google is trading at $1,155 per share, therefore making Charlie’s equity worth $46.2 million. If

The year 2005 when Charlie left Google, he opened his very own restaurant called “Calafia Café & Market” in Palo Alto and also released a cookbook called “Food 2.0: Secrets From The Chef Who Fed Google”. Even then Charlie didn’t sell a single share. By 2007 Charlie’s equity was worth more than $26 million. As of January 16, 2014, Google is trading at $1,155 per share, therefore making Charlie’s equity worth $46.2 million.

Later in 2014, Google stock was split 2-for-1 and it was again split recently in the mid of 2022. The 2022 split was 20-for-1 and the share price for Google (Alphabet) at the end of the year 2022 was USD 88.23. Taking into account both the splits and the current share price, Charlie’s equity is worth more than USD 141 Mn at the start of 2023. Now that’s a delicious story, isn’t it?

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