Human Capital Briefs

Morning Advantage: When Google Employees Die

January 09, 2013

Google’s reputation for being a great place to work precedes itself. But who knew that it’s also a great place to die? Meghan Casserly at Forbes recently reported on a little-known Google employee benefit: If a U.S. Google employee passes away, the surviving spouse or domestic partner will receive a check for 50% of their salary every year for ten years. The policy applies to every one of Google’s 34,000 employees, with no tenure requirement. Surviving spouses also see all stocks vested immediately, and children receive a $1,000 monthly payment from Google until they reach the age of 19 — or 23 if the child is a full-time student. Google’s Chief People Officer Laszlo Bock says “The reason we’re doing these things for employees is not because it’s important to the business, but simply because it’s the right thing to do.”

PLEASE FORGIVE ME

The Occupy Movement Wants to Buy and Forgive Your Debt (Rolling Jubilee)

An organization called Strike Debt, which describes itself as "a coalition of Occupy groups," has proposed something radical that just might work: debt forgiveness. Under the rubric Rolling Jubilee (the jubilee is a Christian tradition of forgiveness-for-cash going back to 1300), the group is raising funds to buy distressed debt, which is often purchased by collection agents. But instead of collecting, Rolling Jubilee is going to forgive it. Poof! While there will inevitably be “issues” associated with the activities (for instance, you can’t actually target specific individuals’ debt), at first blush it seems to live up to its tag line: A bailout of the people, by the people. — Tim Sullivan

THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

Prepare for a Scarcity of Resources and a Fight for Survival (Quartz)

Chris Nelder at Quartz is predicting that the coming decades will test human resourcefulness as never before. “Contra to the oil industry’s narrative proclaiming US energy independence by the end of the decade, numerous independent analysts have been scrutinizing the implacable math of depletion and forecasting that global liquid fuel production will likely reach its ultimate peak within three years, followed by inexorable decline and an attendant deflationary vortex.” He says that military think tanks are quietly gaming scenarios around global resource wars, and civil war in the US, and cites risk-averse fund managers who’ve been accumulating commodities and farmland since 2005, forecasting a future of intense competition for the essentials of life.

 

This blog first appeared on Harvard Business Review on 11/13/2012.

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