The founders of Google are getting a pay cut - they'll get just a dollar each this year.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page will get the nominal payment and no other bonuses or share options according to a regulatory filing made late last week.

Company chief executive Eric Schmidt also took the pay cut in spring last year - just before the company floated.

Before the cut Brin and Page received $150,000 and Schmidt got $250,000 a year. But Brin and Page also each own more than quarter of Google, worth $7bn, Schmidt has a ten per cent stake worth about $2.7bn.

The news will have little impact on the billionaires. The dollar-a-year chief executive is usually brought in to save companies in almost terminal decline - Steve Jobs took a dollar-a-year to return to Apple in 1996.®

Related stories

Yahoo! and Google's top brass cash in
Google wants your DIY porn videos
BBC throws strop at 'Ceefax Google'