Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Alphabet's 2020 Annual Stockholders' Meeting. I'm John Hennessy, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alphabet, and I'll be presiding over this meeting. This morning, we're gathered virtually for obvious reasons. I think we all missed the fabulous Google Breakfast, but more importantly, we hope that everyone is staying safe. Joining us at the meeting today are many members of Alphabet's Board of Directors. We also have members of the management team participating, including Ruth Porat, Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet and Google; Kent Walker, Head of Global Affairs and Chief Legal Officer of Google; Eileen Naughton, Head of People Operations; and Prasad Setty, VP People Operations. Here's the run of the show for today. I'll say a few quick words and then turn it over to Sundar, who will give an overview of the company's activities and priorities.
Given these extraordinary times and the company's enormous efforts around the pandemic, we thought it would be interesting for you to hear from Google's Chief Health Officer, Dr. Karen DeSalvo. She'll discuss the company's extraordinary efforts to support our users, customers, partners, and communities through this pandemic. Then we'll go through the formal business of the meeting. You can see the rules and procedures posted on the virtual annual meeting platform. Finally, we'll move into stockholder questions and answers that have been submitted online. As I mentioned earlier, I have had the privilege of serving as Chairman of the Board and have been a member of the Board for 16 years. It's been a great honor working alongside so many talented leaders over the years.
It feels like a lifetime ago, but it was only six months ago that Larry and Sergey made the decision to simplify the company's management structure under one leader, Sundar, who has seamlessly moved into his new role as CEO of both Alphabet and Google. I want to thank Larry and Sergey for giving us a timeless mission and strong company values that guide all of us, and I look forward to continuing to work with them in their board roles. Our board works closely with management to ensure appropriate oversight in many areas, including the ethical use of technology, improving our workplace and sustainability. We take these responsibilities very seriously, and we've made progress in the past year. Let me give you a few examples.
In terms of upholding high standards in the ethical use of technology, we've dedicated ourselves to doing what we can to mitigate some of the consequences of bad actors using technology for harmful ends and collaborated with independent experts using the UN's Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to assess new products' potential impact on human rights. When it comes to employees, we've worked hard to ensure that our employees are treated fairly, compensated equitably, and that substantiated claims of misconduct are dealt with firmly. Google has eliminated the requirement of arbitration for employment claims and issued a pay equity report that included the highest-ever percentage of Googlers, 93%, and led to more than $5 million in pay adjustments. And finally, sustainability is another important area for us. We've been carbon neutral since 2007 and completed the largest corporate purchase of renewable energy in the world in 2019.
We'll continue to dedicate ourselves to clean energy across many areas of the business, from our data centers, which now deliver around seven times as much computing power with the same amount of electrical power, to ensuring that when we ship our products, there's a carbon emission offset. We take the trust you put in us as a board very seriously. We look forward to working with you now and in the future to continue building the best possible company. With that, I'll turn the program over to Sundar.
Thank you, John. This is Google's first all-virtual shareholder meeting. Let me begin by thanking everyone for joining us this year. These past few months have challenged our health and our economy and have torn at the very fabric of our communities. Our thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones and who are facing other hardships due to COVID-19. I want to also acknowledge the additional pain caused by the rash of violence against the Black community in the U.S. The senseless deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others have compounded the grief people are already feeling. We stand together with the Black community. We are working with our Black Googlers and leaders on things we can do as a company to make a difference.
As an initial step, we announced this morning that Google is committing $12 million in grants over the next two years to advance racial equity, starting with $2 million for the Center for Policing Equity and the Equal Justice Initiative. Additional grants will be announced in the coming weeks. These new grants come on top of $32 million we have given since 2015 to support racial equity in the U.S., and in the last week, Google has raised over $5 million through our internal giving campaign, including our company match. Giving money to worthy organizations is a step in the right direction, but it does not absolve us from doing the harder work ahead, both within and outside of Google. We are prepared to do that work and will do it in close consultation with our Black Googlers and leaders. We'll be sharing more in the weeks and months ahead.
Now, turning to the topic of Google's business and what we have been up to over the past year. At the last meeting, I laid out our vision for building a more helpful Google for everyone. We've been hard at work on the task and realized that being helpful to the millions of people, businesses, and institutions counting on us is more important than ever before. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, we have launched more than 200 features, products, and initiatives. Let me highlight three areas where we have focused. First, we are providing trusted information to help keep people safe, informed, and connected. As the virus began to spread, we surfaced authoritative information across search through custom-built search experiences, knowledge panels, and SOS alerts.
$250 million of our total $1 billion in COVID-19 relief went toward providing ad grants to the World Health Organization and government entities to help disseminate public health messages. On YouTube, more than 700 creators and artists made PSAs to encourage others to stay home and be safe. YouTube also worked hard to fight misinformation, including medically unsubstantiated content, and blocked and removed tens of millions of COVID-19-related ads that violated our policies. Second, we have focused on supporting people as they adapt to a changing world. We are proud that our products like Android, YouTube, and Google Meet have helped people stay connected and entertained while sheltering in place. We saw increased usage in Google Meet, our video conferencing tool. Since January, Meet's peak daily usage has grown by 30x, and last month, we made Google Meet available and free for everyone.
We have worked to support teachers and educators as classrooms move online. By early April, Google Classroom was serving 100 million users, doubling in usage in under a month. For small businesses, we launched a number of new tools and online trainings to help them connect with customers virtually. We are now focused on a third area, the recovery. A true recovery means stopping the spread of the virus while helping economies return to life. On health, we worked with Apple on exposure notification technology to help public health authorities with contact tracing, and as of this week, Verily has launched 100 community-based testing sites in 98 different cities in the U.S., with more to come. On the economic recovery side, we provided $800 million in support for small businesses in the form of ad credits and loans, as well as ad grants to health and economic government agencies.
A significant part of Google.org's $100 million commitment is providing economic relief and recovery for individuals, families, and communities. As recovery continues, we have a big opportunity to help redefine the future of work, not just for our own business, but for others as well. At Google, we have been creating products across distributed teams for a number of years. That experience helped us more easily transition to working from home. Now, we are trying to use what we have learned to help other businesses work remotely, be it helping organizations move seamlessly to the cloud or creating better tools for collaboration and connection. Overall, we feel extremely fortunate to be in a position where we can be helpful to others. We are in that position because of our timeless mission and the long-term investments we have made in service of that mission over the years.
One example is our early bet on AI. Google started making significant investments in AI nearly a decade ago. Over the past year, we have seen some really exciting applications. For example, our new language model called BERT dramatically improved our understanding of search queries. It represents the biggest leap forward for search in the past five years. In health, we showed that deep learning models can be effective in helping doctors detect breast cancer and lung cancer. In the area of accessibility, we rolled out a number of new products over the last year. For example, our Lookout app helps people who are blind get information about their surroundings, and Live Transcribe makes it possible for people who are deaf to have conversations easily with just an Android phone. AI is also making our consumer products more helpful.
Our new Pixel Buds use AI to translate speech in real time, and Live Caption offers on-device captioning. We also made a leap forward with our quantum effort. Google's team of researchers built a quantum computer that performed in seconds a task that would take classical computers thousands of years. This breakthrough could eventually lead to advances in many areas, including more efficient batteries and better medicines. Another example of a long-term investment for us is YouTube, which celebrated its 15th birthday last week. It's been instrumental in helping businesses find customers and helping people everywhere learn new skills. We have invested in new ways to create economic and social impact for creators who are an important part of YouTube's success while growing our subscription offerings like YouTube Premium and YouTube TV.
At the same time, we continue to invest in the teams and technology to protect our community by quickly removing harmful content from our platform to raising up content from authoritative sources. Cloud is another important business for us, and we are seeing strong momentum, especially in Google Cloud Platform and G Suite. Over the last few months, we have seen accelerated traction in multiple industries, including the public sector and health care, retail, media, and communications, and across industries on supply chain management. We now have six million paying G Suite customers, and we have seen good adoption of our hybrid cloud solution, Anthos, which we unveiled last year. We are also investing in commerce by focusing on delivering value to our retail ecosystem through tools, technology, and scale.
In April, we made it free for merchants, even if they don't advertise on Google, to list products in Google Shopping to help them better connect with shoppers. We continue to build for everyone, including the next billion users. Over the last year, we've announced several big milestones. 100 million people are now using Android Go, our product to bring more affordable smartphones to people around the world. In March, we launched Camera Go, helping people take quality photos without worrying about speed or storage. When we build for the next billion users, we build for the world. For example, Read Along, which uses Google's speech recognition technology to help develop literacy skills, first started as a pilot for students in India. It's now available in nine languages across 180-plus countries. Let me also touch on some of our other bets, in addition to Verily, which I've already mentioned.
Waymo reached new milestones of 20 million miles driven on public roads by its self-driving vehicles in January. Waymo also raised $3 billion in its first external investment round, a terrific validation of their technology and long-term business model. Wing saw a surge in deliveries and new users in its operations. Use of the service increased nearly 500% from February to April, which included significant sales for a number of small businesses in Australia and Virginia that were otherwise struggling with reduced foot traffic. I want to thank the entire Alphabet family for all of their work over the past year. We've made some remarkable progress and faced some big challenges. Throughout our 21-year history, we have always seen a problem as an opportunity to solve it and make the world better. As we face these challenges together, we'll continue to ask ourselves, how can we help?
Now, I want to introduce our special speaker. Dr. Karen DeSalvo is Google's Chief Health Officer. She previously held roles as an Acting Assistant Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and as the Health Commissioner for New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. I've been grateful for her expertise and guidance as we make important decisions about the health and well-being of our community. So let me hand it off to Dr. Karen DeSalvo to tell you more about our COVID-19 response.
Thank you, Sundar. I joined Google after two decades in medicine and public health because of my belief that a company with this extraordinary talent, technology, and reach could significantly and positively impact the health of people worldwide. It is a world now facing an historic health challenge.
The scale of the pandemic requires collaboration between public health, medicine, and technology in order to help individuals stay informed, science and medicine find treatments and a vaccine, and public health interrupt the spread of COVID so communities can open again. I'm proud of the role Google is playing to address and end this pandemic, and I wanted to highlight a few of our initiatives. During a public health emergency, getting the right information at the right time saved lives. Following Hurricane Katrina, I saw firsthand how critical accurate information can be to the health of an entire community. After the flood subsided, people shifted focus from how to get out of harm's way to basic questions of survival. Is our drinking water safe? And if not, where can I get clean drinking water? Public health and health care struggled to get that information out.
The COVID pandemic raises the bar on the need for timely, accurate information, and we've partnered with public health agencies around the world to get trusted information out quickly and at scale. In early March, we launched a global campaign with the World Health Organization, Do the Five, to raise awareness about simple measures everyone can take, such as wash your hands and stay home if you're sick. We created an enhanced COVID search results page featuring local and national resources, like those from the CDC here in the U.S., featuring key statistics, treatment, and testing information, and we made it available in 70 languages around the world. On Google Maps, we display the location of more than 5,700 COVID testing sites, and in India, we worked with governments and NGOs to show 12,000 food and night shelters across hundreds of cities to help those affected by the pandemic.
The field of science has a critical role in finding novel treatments and ultimately a vaccine for COVID. Never in history has science been so rapidly evolving and so consequential to the entire world, and we're doing what we can to accelerate this work. To aid researchers, in addition to providing scientists access to high-performance computing on Google Cloud, we've hosted and made available public data sets like the Johns Hopkins resource for COVID cases and the World Bank's global health data. In health care, a top priority is to meet people where they are. With virtual care on the rise, we've been testing a new feature that allows health care providers to highlight their telehealth offerings on Search and Maps, and Google Cloud is working to help doctors support patients remotely with telehealth solutions like Google Meet.
Finally, technology can help as public health develops policies to prevent COVID-19 spread and grapple with how to restore communities. Public health officials need an evidence-based view into where people spend time and how that could impact the virus's spread. For example, in April, we launched the Community Mobility Report. Local officials had been using these reports to guide decisions for their own communities, ranging from my home state of Louisiana to France, the U.K., Brazil, and beyond. And as Sundar mentioned, we've been working with Apple to build an exposure notification system. As communities relax physical distancing policies, public health needs to be able to quickly identify contacts who have been exposed to someone who has tested COVID-19 positive in order to control an outbreak. With feedback from public health and others, we developed an API to augment traditional contact tracing in a privacy-preserving way.
We look forward to seeing countries launching local apps based on this technology. To close, what has struck me during this COVID pandemic, as in prior crises like Katrina, is the overwhelming resilience and sense of community that grows out of difficult times. This is something bigger than all of us. It requires collaboration across sectors and across borders, and the world is responding in just that way. People are working together to find solutions to the pandemic, and we are proud to be a part of these public health, medical, and scientific efforts. I have only been at Google for a short time. I am a newborn still, but I've quickly gotten to know this company and the people here. We have stepped up in this historic time of crisis, and we will keep our focus on partnership and on being helpful to the global community. Thank you, Dr.
Hello, everyone. I'm Kathryn Hall, Alphabet's Assistant Secretary, and I'll be conducting the formal business of the meeting. At this time, I call the meeting to order. Joining us today are Leah Grant, a representative of Broadridge Financial Services, who will act as our inspector of election, and Andrew Cotton and Matthew Sapp, representatives of Ernst & Young, LLP, our independent accountants. The polls are open and will close after the presentation of our formal business matters. As John noted earlier, we'll provide for a question-and-answer period after we have finished the formal business of the meeting. If you would like to ask a question during the meeting, please enter your question in the Ask a Question box on the virtual meeting website. To allow us to answer questions from as many stockholders as possible, please keep questions succinct and limited to one topic per question.
Stockholder questions or remarks must be relevant to the meeting. Thanks in advance for your cooperation with all of the rules of procedure posted on the virtual meeting website. I've received an affidavit of mailing from Broadridge that states that the notice of this meeting was duly given. All stockholders of Class A and/or Class B Common Stock, as of the close of business on April 7, 2020, are entitled to vote at this meeting. In addition, I've been advised by the inspector of election that holders of our outstanding Class A and Class B Common Stock, representing at least a majority of the voting power of our outstanding Class A and Class B Common Stock entitled to vote, are represented at today's meeting. Therefore, a quorum is present, the meeting is duly constituted, and the business of the meeting may proceed.
The first item of business is the election of directors. 11 directors will be elected at today's meeting. The directors elected today will hold office until the 2021 annual meeting of stockholders. The board of directors has nominated the following individuals: Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Sundar Pichai, John L. Hennessy, Francis H. Arnold, L. John Doerr, Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., Anne Mather, Alan R. Mulally, K. Ram Shriram, and Robin L. Washington. Our bylaws require that stockholders provide advance notice of their intent to nominate persons as directors. No such notice was received. Accordingly, I declare the nominations for directors closed. The next matter being submitted to our stockholders is the ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as our independent registered public accounting firm for the 2020 fiscal year.
Our board of directors has recommended that our stockholders ratify the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as Alphabet's independent registered public accounting firm for the 2020 fiscal year. The next matter being submitted to our stockholders is approval of the amendment of Alphabet's Amended and Restated 2012 Stock Plan to increase the share reserve by 8,500,000 shares of Class C Capital Stock. Our board of directors has recommended that our stockholders approve the amendment of Alphabet's Amended and Restated 2012 Stock Plan , as described in detail in our proxy statement. The next matter being submitted to our stockholders is the approval, on an advisory basis, of the compensation awarded to named executive officers. Our executive compensation program and compensation paid to our named executive officers are described in detail in our proxy statement.
Our compensation programs are overseen by the Leadership Development and Compensation Committee and reflect our philosophy to pay all of our employees, including our named executives, named executive officers, in ways that support our primary business objectives, including attracting and retaining the world's best talent, supporting Alphabet's culture of innovation and performance, and aligning employee and stockholder interests. Our board of directors has recommended that our stockholders approve the compensation awarded to Alphabet's named executive officers. The next 10 items being submitted are stockholder proposals that were included in our proxy statement. The first stockholder proposal is brought by the NorthStar Asset Management funded pension plan. The proponent has submitted a prerecorded presentation in support of the proposal. I recognize Mari Schwartzer for a period of three minutes.
My name is Mari Schwartzer from NorthStar Asset Management in Boston, representing 9,148 shares of Alphabet Class A common stock.
I am representing resolution number 5, a request that Alphabet's board take all practicable steps to initiate and adopt a recapitalization plan for all outstanding stock to have one vote per share. When shareholders of common stock do not have an equal right to weigh in on significant matters of corporate policy, we lose our right to oversee management through board elections, empowering the CEO and insiders to appoint a board that only serves the CEO and management, not shareholders. When Alphabet went public, shareholders already lacked the opportunity to give substantive input into company policies. Alphabet's voting structure is heavily weighted to favor insiders, given that Class B shares are granted 10 times the voting rights of Class A shares. Shareholder rights were further weakened when Class B insiders voted in the creation of a brand new class of stock with zero voting rights.
The fact that this new share structure was approved is particularly remarkable because our calculations estimate that 85% of Class A outside shares that voted disapproved of establishing the Class C non-voting stock. This measure passed because insiders supported it, insiders who control over 50% of the voting power while owning far less in economic stake. While shareholders might accept this lack of input when profits are up, this voting structure constitutes a considerable risk to governance and shareholder value during times of crisis, and our company is no stranger to controversy. The founders brought this company to fruition and led it to profitability, but the company's decision to offer common shares of the company on public exchanges, making Alphabet a public company, brings with it responsibility to shareholders to practice good governance. Shareholders, we urge you to vote for proxy item number five. Thank you for presenting this proposal.
Our board of directors has recommended a vote against this proposal for the reasons stated in our proxy statement. Since its inception, Google, and now Alphabet, has been managed with a focus on the long term. The dual-class capital structure has been in existence since we became a public company in 2004, and the tri-class structure that was approved by our stockholders in 2012 is designed to provide stability over long-time horizons. Investors purchasing our stock are aware of this capital structure, and many are attracted to our stock by the long-term stability that our co-founders continue to provide the company. We also have established a robust governance structure to ensure independent oversight of the management team. We believe that our capital structure, combined with our sound and effective governance structure, has provided significant stability to the company and is therefore in the best interests of our stockholders.
The next stockholder proposal is being brought by the Comptroller of the City of New York, Scott M. Stringer, as the custodian and trustee of the New York City Employees' Retirement System, the New York City Teachers' Retirement System, the New York City Police Pension Fund, and the New York City Fire Pension Fund. I recognize Yumi Narita for a period of three minutes to present this proposal. I'll advise you when your time is about to expire. Operator, please open
Yumi's line. Yumi, your line is now open.
Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, board members, and fellow shareholders. I'm Yumi Narita from the Office of the New York City Comptroller, Scott Stringer, and I'm here to present proposal six on behalf of the Comptroller and the New York City Pension Fund, which are substantial long-term Alphabet shareholders with roughly 400,000 shares.
Specifically, proposal six calls for the board to report to shareholders on the use of contractual provisions requiring Alphabet's workforce to arbitrate employment-related claims. I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize that it is not a proposal requesting prohibition of mandatory arbitration. While we oppose the practice, we are asking for information so that all shareholders are able to assess the risks associated with the use of such agreements. Mandatory arbitration precludes employees from suing in court for wrongs like wage theft, discrimination, and sexual harassment, all of which have been alleged by Alphabet workers. It also requires employees to submit to private arbitration, which has been found to discourage claims and to allow toxic work culture to flourish, undermining morale. Arbitrators are further not required to have training in nor adhere strictly to the law. We continue to applaud the company for prohibiting such agreements for Google.
The risks associated with having a mandatory arbitration policy would not be outweighed by the benefits to Google employees or to Google itself. Therefore, it seems inconsistent and, in fact, unjust that Alphabet does not extend this policy to provide, at the very least, disclosure on this issue for all Alphabet workers, whether they're a contract worker employed by a third-party supplier for Alphabet or working at the other Alphabet subsidiaries or controlled affiliates. We furthermore contend that the company can update its supplier code of conduct to require disclosure on whether or not the workforce practices include mandatory arbitration. In the words of the very employee who presented our proposal on inequitable practices last year, quote, "Are we worth less than other engineers at this company? Do we not all deserve the same rights and freedoms?" Unquote.
In its response to our proposal, the company seems to imply that they're allowing the employees to make the decision to require arbitration for employment disputes for themselves. But as the parent company, Alphabet, again, at the very least, should provide transparency on these decisions. This year, our proposal followed Chipotle, identical to this one, passed, receiving 51% of the votes. We urge the board to strengthen its oversight of human capital and to enhance the transparency of the prevalence and impact of Alphabet's mandatory arbitration policies. We are asking, in the words of the company's founders, to make the world a better place, a better place for everyone that works for you.
Finally, we would encourage the board to review separately the votes cast by only the unaffiliated independent shareholders to get a sense of how owners outside of the boardroom view each of these proposals on the agenda. We would recommend that the company also tally and disclose these figures to all shareholders. Thank you. Thank you for presenting this proposal. Our board of directors has recommended a vote against this proposal for the reasons stated in our proxy statement. Alphabet is committed to equality and fairness. From that commitment comes our dedication to complying with all employment laws and ensuring that we maintain fair employment practices throughout the company. As of February 2019, Google no longer requires current or future employees to arbitrate any employment disputes, including but not limited to sexual harassment and assault claims. A number of our other bets have followed Google's lead.
Google has also removed workplace arbitration requirements from its direct agreements with its extended workforce, and while Google does not control employment agreements with all of our extended workforce, it has informed the third-party suppliers and vendors of this change and has encouraged them to consider a change as well. Given all of this, we do not believe that adopting this proposal would provide any meaningful benefit to our stockholders. The next stockholder proposal is being brought by the Sustainability Group of Loring, Wolcott & Coolidge Fiduciary Advisors, LLP, on behalf of W. Andrew Mims Trust, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V., Hermes Global Equity ESG Fund, and NEI Investments as the co-lead filers, along with a number of other co-filers. The proponents have submitted a prerecorded presentation in support of this proposal. I recognize Larissa Ruoff for a period of three minutes. Good morning.
My name is Larissa Ruoff, and I represent the Sustainability Group of Loring, Wolcott & Coolidge in Boston. Along with Hermes Investment Management in the United Kingdom, NEI Investments in Canada, and Robeco in the Netherlands, we are the lead proponents of proxy item seven, the establishment of a Human Rights Risk Oversight Committee. We consider Alphabet to be a long-term core holding of the firm. Therefore, our interests should be well aligned with those of the company. In a demonstration of the extensive shareholder concern surrounding the issue we bring forward today, proxy item seven has been co-filed by a coalition of over 15 investors from across the globe. None of our firms take the decision to file a resolution lightly. For some filers, this represents the first time that their firms have done so.
Our collective efforts to have meaningful dialogue with the company around these concerns have been rebuffed for years, leaving us no option but to file this resolution. At the heart of our proposal is a deep concern with how the company identifies and addresses the significant human rights risks inherent in its technologies and business model. These risks threaten to undermine fundamental human rights, including privacy, political participation, freedom of expression, health, and non-discrimination. The proponents believe that Alphabet has neither sufficient company-wide policies, processes, and systems, nor board-level oversight as needed to address these risks. Because the company relies on the trust of its users, advertisers, and the general public, Alphabet's long-term success depends on getting this issue right. Let us be clear. Our intent is neither taking a position on a specific issue nor making specific recommendations as to how Alphabet addresses them.
Further, we do not claim that establishing a Human Rights Risk Oversight Committee alone would make these complex issues go away. However, we do believe that the company's steps to address these risks have been woefully inadequate to date. To reiterate, Board Chair Hennessy's own words from the letter to shareholders in this year's proxy statement, quote, "As a board, we realize that you have placed your trust in us to help lead Alphabet into the future and to do so in a way that makes you proud not just of what we do, but how we do it." Proxy item seven is an opportunity for Alphabet to do just that. We believe adopting the committee would help the company retain and, in many cases, regain the trust of its stakeholders by ensuring that the board is adequately responding to these very real risks.
Therefore, we encourage all shareholders to support proxy item seven. Thank you.
Thank you for presenting this proposal. Our board of directors has recommended a vote against this proposal for the reasons stated in our proxy statement. Across our company, we are guided by internationally recognized human rights standards. We are steadfast in our commitment to respecting the rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its implementing treaties, as well as upholding the standards established in the United Nations guiding principles on business and human rights and in the Global Network Initiative Principles . Google senior management oversees the implementation of these principles and provides updates to our board of directors and the applicable committees on relevant issues, including the latest developments in content quality and hate speech policies, facial recognition applications, and artificial intelligence principles, all of which incorporate our human rights commitments.
Our current governance structure already empowers our board of directors and its committees to holistically review our business and to consider a wide range of risks, including the impact of our products and services on human rights. We believe establishing a separate committee to consider risks already considered by our board of directors and its existing committees would result in a duplication of efforts with no incremental benefit. The next stockholder proposal is being brought by John Chevedden. I recognize John Chevedden for a period of three minutes to present the proposal. I'll advise you when your time is about to expire. Operator, please open John's line.
John, your line is now open.
Hello. This is John Chevedden. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Proposal eight, let shareholders vote on bylaw amendments.
Charles requests that the board of directors take the steps necessary to amend the bylaws to require that any material amendment to the bylaws that is approved by the board shall be subject to a non-binding shareholder vote as soon as reasonably possible unless such amendment is already subject to a shareholder vote. The board of directors or the chairman of the governance committee would have the discretion to determine which bylaw amendments are material. It is important that bylaw amendments take into consideration the impact such amendments can have on limiting the rights of shareholders and on reducing the accountability of directors and managers. For example, directors could adopt an early crafted exclusive forum bylaw that suits the unique circumstances facing the directors.
A proxy advisor recently adopted a policy to vote against directors who unilaterally adopt bylaw provisions or amendments to the articles of incorporation that materially diminish shareholder rights. Even if a majority of shareholders do not vote for this proposal, it will at least alert shareholders that management at this company or the management at other companies in their portfolios can try to sneak items into the bylaws that limit the rights of shareholders and reduce the accountability of management. One of the purposes of shareholder proposals is to provide useful information to shareholders that they would not receive from management. In the spirit of shareholder accountability, management should announce today which directors did not have time for today's online meeting. Please vote yes. Proposal eight, let shareholders vote on bylaw amendments.
Thank you for presenting this proposal.
Our board of directors has recommended a vote against this proposal for the reasons stated in our proxy statement. Both Section 109 of the Delaware General Corporation Law and our bylaws already permit stockholders to unilaterally and independently adopt, amend, or repeal our bylaws. In addition, our corporate governance structure also provides stockholders with meaningful opportunities to express their levels of satisfaction with actions taken by our board of directors, including by contacting our board of directors on bona fide issues or through their votes on director nominees. Furthermore, implementing this proposal could impede the ability of our board of directors to swiftly carry out their fiduciary duties as well as impose undue administrative and financial burden on the company to solicit non-binding stockholder votes.
Our Board of Directors takes its fiduciary obligations seriously and would not implement changes to our bylaws that it does not believe are in the best interests of the company and, as such, does not believe the proposal is in the best interests of the company and our stockholders. The next stockholder proposal is being brought by Zevin Asset Management, LLC, as a lead filer on behalf of the Sisters of the Order of St. Dominic of Grand Rapids, along with a number of other co-filers. I recognize Pat Miguel Tomaino for a period of three minutes to present the proposal. I'll advise you when your time is about to expire. Operator, please open Pat's line.
Pat, your line is now open.
Fellow shareholders and members of the board, my name is Pat Miguel Tomaino, Director of Socially Responsible Investing at Zevin Asset Management.
On behalf of the proponent, I hereby move proposal number nine, which asks our company to consider explicitly linking executive compensation to sustainability metrics, including diversity and inclusion. Since 2017, Alphabet investors and workers have flagged our concerns over the company's inability to improve diversity and inclusion in a meaningful way. Diversity and inclusion is critical for a technology firm like Alphabet, which must find, retain, and promote the most talented people in the world, no matter what they look like, no matter where they come from. Large technology and internet companies like Google also find themselves at the center of roiling controversies around surveillance, human rights, facial recognition, artificial intelligence, and defense and government contracting issues which disproportionately impact minority and immigrant communities.
Over the years, Alphabet has signaled that it believes that diversity and inclusion makes good business sense for our company. That is correct. Alphabet's taken steps to address inclusion. However, largely, Alphabet's managers have failed to deliver. In 2020, as America faces a painful new reckoning around racism, white supremacy, and gender injustice, our company remains predominantly white and male. According to Google's 2020 diversity report, underrepresented people of color account for only 7.9% of Google's tech workforce and only 6.8% of leadership. In contrast, Silicon Valley's at-large, lower-wage subcontracted workforce, people like janitors, cafeteria workers, and shuttle drivers, is 58% Black or Latinx, earning on average $19,500 per year. And this lack of diversity is playing out in human capital risks and controversy for our company. In 2018, approximately 20,000 workers walked out protesting Alphabet's mishandling of sexual misconduct cases.
In 2019, more than 2,000 Googlers signed a petition to remove a member of the company's newly formed council on artificial intelligence ethics for alleged anti-trans and anti-immigrant views. That board was disbanded after only a week in response to the outcry. And just last month, NBC reported that Google had ended a prominent diversity program, shrunk teams devoted to diversity and inclusion, and outsourced various diversity-related functions. The mood among some Google leaders, it was reported, is that, quote, "Conversations about diversity could become a liability," end quote. The events of the last two weeks, the righteous protests occurring across America in response to George Floyd's murder by police in Minneapolis, among other atrocities, show that everyone in every corner of society needs to increase their commitment to racial justice. For we gathered here, that means that Alphabet must move beyond words, pledges, and reporting.
Alphabet must move to accountability. This proposal is a step toward accountability. It simply asks Alphabet to consider clearly disclosed links between executive pay packages and diversity inclusion among other environmental, social, and governance ESG issues that executives deem material. In other words, we're asking Alphabet to put its money where its mouth is on inclusion and drive improvement from the top. This is a common-sense corporate governance reform employed by many of Alphabet's peers, including Microsoft, Intel, and IBM, as well as other corporate icons, among them Alcoa, Unilever, PepsiCo, Walmart, and Danone. These companies link executive pay to key ESG issues because they know it's a way to get results. We need results. It's time to move beyond business as usual with a sense of purpose and a sense of accountability at Alphabet.
Investors hope this proposal will be an opportunity for renewal, and we look forward to engaging with the company on how to implement it. Thank you for voting for proposal number nine.
Thank you for presenting this proposal. Our board of directors has recommended a vote against this proposal for the reasons stated in our proxy statement. Alphabet has long supported corporate sustainability, including environmental, social, and diversity considerations. We build sustainability into everything we do, from designing and operating efficient data centers, advancing carbon-free energy, creating sustainable workplaces, building better devices and services, empowering users with technology, and enabling a responsible supply chain. As for diversity, our strategy is anchored in operationalizing our long-standing commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and integrity, focusing on measurable goals and systematic approaches to improve outcomes in workforce representation and creation of an inclusive culture.
In assessing the individual performance of our named executive officers, their performance against these types of strategic goals are already considered by the leadership development and compensation committee. As such, our board of directors do not believe this proposal is in the best interests of the company and our stockholders. The next stockholder proposal is being brought by Azzad Asset Management as a lead filer, along with the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, United States Province. The proponents have submitted a prerecorded presentation in support of this proposal. I recognize Dr. Jack Poulson for a period of three minutes.
Hello, shareholders and members of the board. My name is Jack Poulson, and I was formerly a senior research scientist in Google's research and machine intelligence division. I publicly resigned over some of the policies discussed in this proposal.
On behalf of Azzad Asset Management and the other co-filers, I hereby move the resolution asking the Alphabet Board of Directors to issue a report assessing the feasibility of publicly disclosing a list of suppressed terms, queries, or sites that the company implements in response to government requests. Google took a principled stand in early 2010 by publicly refusing to continue proactively censoring its localization of its search product for mainland China. As a member of the Global Network Initiative, Google was setting the precedent that tech companies censoring or monitoring human rights activity are an integral part of governmental suppression of dissent. Google's stand left one of its major competitors, Microsoft, exposed, as they had recently launched their own suppressive modifications to their search engine, Bing, which continues to this day.
Microsoft's concern was serious enough that Bill Gates told The New York Times that Google had, quote, "Done nothing and gotten a lot of credit for it," as Chinese censorship was very limited and easy to go around. Google weathered this press offensive while maintaining a significant footprint through Android and its ad networks. Perhaps to protect these market positions, in 2018, Google assigned hundreds of engineers to rebuild human rights censorship and monitoring into a mainland China localization of search. In August 2018, a coalition of human rights organizations wrote an open letter to Sundar Pichai asking him to reaffirm Google's 2010 commitment to not censoring human rights information, disclose any safeguards against human rights violations, and guarantee protections for whistleblowers.
To date, Google has not committed to any of these requests, and Sundar Pichai publicly defended such censorship in October 2018 by framing it as a small percentage of search traffic. Despite two congressional inquiries and 740 Googlers bravely signing an open letter opposing the project, Google has only committed to clarifying its position upon a product launch. Accusations of voluntary blacklisting of queries and content are all the more alarming in light of India's proposal to increase the due diligence requirements on intermediaries through an amendment to its Information Technology Act. Firms such as Alphabet may soon be compelled to proactively censor large categories of critical speech.
This proposal asks the company to investigate the feasibility of incorporating into its transparency report the substantive content of government requests, including whether the request was met and criteria used to guide decisions, and then notifying customers of content affected by such requests. Alphabet has the duty to avoid the moral, legal, financial, reputational, and operational risks posed by suppressing content that serves the public welfare. On behalf of Azzad Asset Management, I urge shareholders to vote for this proposal. Thank you for presenting this proposal. Our board of directors has recommended a vote against this proposal for the reasons stated in our proxy statement. Since our founding, Google has been committed to making the world's information available to everyone. We believe that knowledge is empowering and that a society with more information is better off than one with less.
In 2010, we launched the Google Transparency Report with the mission of sharing data that sheds light on how the policies and actions of governments and corporations affect privacy, security, and access to information. In this report, we voluntarily disclosed the number of requests we received from courts and government agencies in six-month periods, organized by reason given for removal request, type of product, and whether the requesting government body was a member of the judicial or executive branch. We also provide this information on a country-regional basis. Additionally, we provide transparency about removals via Lumen, a project of Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Lumen works with a variety of international research partners to offer information about the global landscape of internet takedown requests.
We also continue to innovate around product-specific transparency with YouTube's industry-leading transparency reporting on how it enforces the community guidelines, which includes additional data like channel removals, the number of comments removed, the policy reason why a video or channel was removed, and most recently, appeals data. Given the significant work that we have done in this area, our public reporting of these issues, and our commitment to continue to keep the public informed about our efforts, our board of directors does not believe that implementing this proposal would provide additional benefit to our stockholders. The next stockholder proposal is being brought by James McRitchie on behalf of himself and Myra K. Young. I recognize James McRitchie for a period of three minutes to present this proposal. I'll advise you when your time is about to expire. Operator, please open James's line.
J ames, your line is now open. Thank you.
This proposal is from me, James McRitchie of corpgov.net. It requests the board to amend our bylaws to provide that director nominees be elected by the majority of votes cast, with a plurality vote standard retained only for contested elections. That is, when the number of nominees exceeds the number of seats. Frankly, I thought since the founders control a majority of the vote, this would be a very easy proposal for them to agree to. A baby step, really, since they would still retain total control. Adopting a majority vote standard, though, might signal that someday shareholders other than the founders might be given a voice in which directors are elected, or rather, which directors are rejected by shareholders. However, the board refused to negotiate, or maybe they just didn't have permission to do so.
Apparently, do the right thing at Alphabet means keeping the oligarchy in firm control. Now, we can't change that power dynamic today, but we can at least send a strong signal with our vote. However, hopefully someday, Alphabet's founders will see the potential value of democracy and more democratic structures. In 2019, similar proposals passed at Stemline Therapeutics, Eldorado Resorts, RadNet, New Media Investment Group, New Residential Investment Corp., Safety Insurance Group, First Community Bankshares, Greenhill & Co., Adverum. During 2018, same majority vote voted for similar proposals at Netflix, Marriott, Discover Financial Services, Manitowoc Company, and Costco. Already in 2020, additional companies have adopted a majority vote standard. Let's do the same at Alphabet. Please vote for proposal number 11 to require a majority vote for the election of directors. Thank you very much, and please stay safe. Thank you for presenting this proposal.
Our board of directors has recommended a vote against this proposal for the reasons stated in our proxy statement. Under our bylaws, directors are elected using a plurality voting standard. Our nominating and corporate governance committee is tasked with evaluating and recommending nominees for election to our board of directors. As part of their practice, the committee reviews and considers individual director performance, board and committee performance, governance practices, and stockholder approval before making recommendations to the board of directors. Stockholders may express dissatisfaction with an incumbent director's performance by withholding their vote. A plurality voting standard also assures that we avoid failed elections or scenarios where directors fail to achieve the votes necessary to be elected, resulting in vacancies on our board.
The possibility of failed elections introduces unnecessary legal uncertainty and risk to our director election process, as vacancies on our board of directors could result in our inability to comply with certain NASDAQ listing requirements or other securities regulations. Our board of directors believes that our current nominating and voting procedures for election to our board of directors provide the board the flexibility to appropriately respond to stockholder interests without the risk of potential corporate governance complications arising from failed elections. As such, our board of directors has concluded that this proposal is not in the best interests of Alphabet and our stockholders. The next stockholder proposal is being brought by Arjuna Capital as a lead filer on behalf of Andrea G. Reusing, Ralph L. McCaughan Jr. and James Mashburn, and Proxy Impact as a co-filer on behalf of CB Wealth Generation LLC.
The proponents have submitted a prerecorded presentation in support of this proposal. I recognize Michael Passoff for a period of three minutes to present this proposal.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, and fellow shareholders. My name is Michael Passoff, and I'm the CEO of Proxy Impact, and we, along with Arjuna Capital, filed proposal number 12, which asked for a report on the company's global median gender and racial pay gap. This is the fifth year we have filed a pay gap resolution at Alphabet. I would like to acknowledge that the company has taken several significant steps to address this issue, and we commend it on the progress it has made. Yet this company still only provides minimal public disclosure of its pay gap, and what it does provide is focused on statistically adjusted pay parity reporting, which is only half the story.
The other half is unadjusted median pay disclosure, and that is the specific request to this proposal. Pay gaps are comprised of two parts: equal pay for your current job, equal opportunity to higher paying jobs. Median pay gaps reflect a lack of equal opportunity. In fact, the gender pay gap is literally defined as the median pay gap between male and female full-time earnings. That definition is used by the U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Census Bureau, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the International Labor Organization. The United Kingdom also mandates disclosure of median gender pay gaps, and Google U.K.'s 2019 gender pay report showed a 19% median pay gap and a 35% median bonus gap. But with the exception of the U.K., our company has not published median pay gap information for the U.S. or other global operations.
This raises the question: Does Google disagree with all the major U.S. and international organizations already using unadjusted median pay as a key data point, or is it simply avoiding the reporting of unflattering data? Median pay gap disclosures can improve performance and provide a baseline to investors for measuring progress going forward. A 2019 study cited in the Harvard Business Review found that wage transparency in countries that mandate it narrowed the median wage gap. Citigroup was the first U.S. company to publish its global gender and U.S. minority pay gap in January 2019. It has since shrunk those gaps two and one points respectively year over year. Starbucks and Mastercard have since adopted the same best practice disclosures for their global operations.
There are many ways to shrink gender and racial pay gaps at a company: improving diversity, ensuring statistically adjusted pay parity, advancing women and minorities into positions of leadership. But the only benchmark to measure whether the pay gap is actually shrinking from these various levers is to publish the pay gap itself. We firmly believe our company is best served by a transparent and full accounting of pay equity. Thank you. Thank you for presenting this proposal. Our board of directors has recommended a vote against this proposal for the reasons stated in our proxy statement. We are deeply committed to diversity and equality in all areas of our business, including hiring and compensation. Consistent with those values, the compensation structure at Google is designed to be fair and equitable and prevent pay differences across demographics for employees performing the same work.
Google has released an annual report on its pay equity analyses every year since 2016, the latest of which was released in December 2019. This report included our detailed methodology and findings. If we find any statistically significant discrepancies in any job groups, we make upwards adjustments across the group to eliminate the discrepancy. In 2019, we included 93% of Google's employees in the analysis, the highest percentage to date, and provided $5.1 million in adjustments. This pay equity analysis ensures that compensation is fair for employees in the same job at the same location level and performance. We believe in the transparency of the process and will continue to disclose the results of our pay equity analyses consistent with our commitment to paying fairly, improving our practices, working hard to improve the representation across all jobs and levels.
Google's latest progress towards a more representative workforce can be found in its 2020 diversity annual report released last month. Accordingly, our board of directors does not believe that an additional report as detailed in this proposal would enhance Alphabet's existing commitment to fostering a fair and inclusive culture. The next stockholder proposal is being brought by Arjuna Capital on behalf of Richard and Eleanor Shorter as lead filer, and Harrington Investments, Inc., on behalf of Bruce Alexander Magowan as co-filer. The proponents have submitted a prerecorded presentation in support of this proposal. I recognize Natasha Lamb for a period of three minutes to present this proposal.
Good morning. My name is Natasha Lamb, and I move proposal number 13 on behalf of Arjuna Capital and our clients, asking Alphabet's board to nominate at least one board candidate with a high level of human and/or civil rights expertise.
Shareholders believe this oversight is necessary to avoid widespread violations of human and civil rights in light of the hate campaigns, violence, and privacy violations that have been disseminated over the company's platform. For the last three years, we have expressed our concern as investors that Alphabet's content governance has proven ad hoc, ineffectual, and poses a risk to shareholder value. This is evident in several ways. For one, hate speech continues to run rampant. Civil rights advocates have criticized Alphabet for failing to address hate speech that targets marginalized groups, and in spite of the company's June 2019 crackdown on hate speech, the Anti-Defamation League has found, “A significant number of channels on YouTube's platform continue to disseminate anti-Semitic and white supremacist content,” end quote. Second, dangerous speech and violence continues.
The Christchurch terrorist attack in New Zealand, which was broadcast over YouTube, was so abhorrent that it led to a global call to limit the spread of extremist content over social media. New Zealand's Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, said, quote, "We cannot simply sit back and accept that these platforms just exist and that what is said on them is not the responsibility of the place where they have been published. It cannot be a case of all profit, no responsibility," end quote. This kind of high-profile attention poses both regulatory and reputational risks to Alphabet. Third, issues of privacy have not been responsibly addressed. A 2019 Amnesty International report concluded Google's surveillance-based business model is incompatible with the right to privacy and poses a serious threat to a range of other human rights, noting that Google's algorithms can actively promote or amplify abusive, discriminatory, and hateful content.
In 2019, YouTube's violation of children's privacy led to a record $170 million fine by the Federal Trade Commission, and in January, the high-profile departure of Google's global head of international relations brought into question yet again the company's commitment not to participate in surveillance and censorship in China. As fiduciaries, our board is responsible for the stewardship of business performance and long-term strategic planning in light of risk factors like widespread violations of human and civil rights. We believe these risks warrant a governance-level response and sufficient board oversight. Thank you.
Thank you for presenting this proposal. Our board of directors has recommended a vote against this proposal for the reasons stated in our proxy statement. As stated earlier, across our company, we are guided by internationally recognized human rights standards.
Dedicated personnel are focused on product jurisdiction and functional areas and are responsible for the day-to-day operations of protecting users and meeting Google's human rights obligations. Senior management oversees the implementation of the human rights and global network initiative principles at Google and provides quarterly updates on relevant issues to the members of our board of directors, who we believe are qualified and equipped to represent the best interests of our stockholders and to provide practical insights and diverse perspectives, including on topics such as those related to civil and/or human rights. We believe there are a myriad of skills that make an ideal board candidate. Our current process allows us to consider all factors holistically, and as a result, we do not believe it would be in the best interest of the company or its stockholders to adopt this proposal.
The next stockholder proposal is our final item of business. As a reminder, the polls are currently open and will close after the presentation of this final item, which is a stockholder proposal being brought by Trillium Asset Management LLC on behalf of Trillium P21 Global Equity Fund and Episcopal City Mission. The proponents have submitted a prerecorded presentation in support of this proposal. I recognize Dr. Jack Poulson for a period of three minutes to present this proposal.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. My name is Jack Poulson, and I'm speaking on behalf of Trillium Asset Management and its client, the Episcopal City Mission, to hereby move proposal number 14, seeking a report on whistleblower policies and practices. The following comments are mine.
Alphabet has been a leader in the modern definition of ethical behavior in the tech sector and the Department of Defense through its formulation of its AI principles. The heart of these principles are the commitments to not design or deploy technologies which either, one, are likely to cause overall harm, two, are best classified as weapons, three, involve surveillance violating international norms, or four, whose purpose contravenes human rights. What these principles lack is a means of navigating the tensions that arise when their adherence would require risking major revenue streams. Indeed, the impetus for Google formulating its AI principles was a months-long debate which spilled out onto the pages of the New York Times as to whether Google was changing the ethical character of the company by developing full-motion video object tracking for drone warfare.
As the principles were being developed, Google was quietly rolling back its previous public stance that localizing its search engine to suppress human rights activism was crossing an ethical line. Most Google employees learned of this apparent violation of not only the AI principles but a public opposition to censorship dating back to 2010 from a whistleblower. The CEO, Sundar Pichai, and the Chairman of Alphabet, John Hennessy, would go on to publicly defend the concessions. These ethical violations were the cause of my own, eventually public, resignation in August 2018. It was only through months of public criticism, an open letter of opposition bravely signed by 740 Google engineers, and Google's own privacy team blocking usage of data from 265.com that Google's CEO was willing to, at least temporarily, shelf the project.
To this day, Alphabet has refused to state that censoring or surveilling human rights activists violates its principles despite the contradictory verbiage of its AI principles. If Alphabet is to retain any of its ethical glow from its principled stand on human rights in 2010, it must enable, not suppress, future human rights whistleblowers. In addition to Alphabet's recent progress on abandoning forced arbitration, we ask that Alphabet follow suit of Europe's whistleblower directive by committing to not litigate possible NDA violations from public interest whistleblowers. And given what appears to be retaliation against four employees concerned with human rights violations from Google Cloud contracts, we ask that the company formally commit to not firing or demoting employees engaged in protected concerted activity. Thank you.
Thank you for presenting this proposal. Our board of directors has recommended a vote against this proposal for the reasons stated in our proxy statement.
Alphabet is committed to maintaining a culture that encourages employees and others to report concerns related to violations of our code of conduct, policies, or laws, including our human rights commitments. That is why we have adopted and promoted policies that strictly prohibit retaliation of any kind for raising such concerns or for participating in an investigation relating to such concerns. We protect whistleblowers by thoroughly investigating allegations of retaliation and imposing discipline when we substantiate retaliation allegations. For the past six years, we have shared with our employees on an annual basis an internal investigations report which provides transparency into the type of concerns employees have raised, the number of concerns employees have raised, and how the company has resolved those concerns. The ability to raise concerns helps protect and preserve our company's special culture and is key to our long-term success.
We believe our existing policies, which are broad in scope, adequately address the concerns raised by the proponent. Because no further business is scheduled to come before the stockholders, I declare the polls for each matter voted upon at this meeting closed. I will now review the preliminary results on the matters brought before the meeting. I've been advised by the inspector of election that the nominees for election to the board of directors have been duly elected.
I've been further advised by the inspector of election that a majority of the shares of our Class A and Class B common stock entitled to vote and present at the meeting or represented by proxy voted in favor of the ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP to act as our independent registered public accounting firm for the 2020 fiscal year, the approval of the amendment of Alphabet's amended and restated 2012 stock plan, and the approval on an advisory basis of the compensation awarded to named executive officers. Therefore, each of these proposals has been approved by our stockholders.
I have also been advised by the inspector of election that a majority of the shares of our Class A and Class B common stock entitled to vote and present at the meeting or represented by proxy voted against proposals 5 through 14 described in our proxy statement. Therefore, each of these stockholder proposals has not been approved by our stockholders. As soon as possible after the meeting, we'll complete the final vote tabulations and we'll provide the final vote results on our investor relations website and in a filing with the SEC. That ends the official business of the meeting, and I declare the formal portion of our meeting adjourned. We've now set aside approximately 20 minutes for a question-and-answer session. We'd like to thank you for all of the questions you've submitted. We'll try to get to as many as we can.
We received a few questions about Alphabet's position on the stockholder proposals covered during the formal business of today's meeting, and since I have already stated the company's position on each stockholder proposal, we will not be covering those again during the question-and-answer session. Also, questions received from several stockholders on the same topic or that were otherwise related have been grouped and summarized so that they could be answered together. Finally, a few questions had to be paraphrased for readability. With that, I'd like to invite back John Hennessy, Chairman of the Board, and Sundar Pichai, Chief Executive Officer of Alphabet and Google. I'd also like to invite Ruth Porat, Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet and Google, Kent Walker, Head of Global Affairs and Chief Legal Officer of Google, Eileen Naughton, Head of People Operations of Google, and Prasad Setty, VP, People Operations of Google.
Our first question is, what are you doing today to improve the health and safety of your workers? The word workers to include management, staff, and all employees at all levels.
This is Sundar. I'm happy to answer this question. The health and safety of our workforce is our top priority, and as we've been thinking about it, we obviously start with guidance from public health authorities in the areas where we operate and comply with all applicable local laws and regulations to protect worker safety. As you can, we are a global company with many offices around the world. Some of our offices in Asia are back to full capacity, but in most of the areas impacted, assuming local guidance allows, we'll start to open offices more gradually.
On July 6th, our approach will be slow, deliberate, and incremental with safety and well-being of Googlers in the community being our highest priority. My sense is we'll have up to 30% of our people in the office based on building capacity at any one time to allow for the right precautions and social distancing, and we expect the first to return will be those whose jobs require being back in the office. For others during this time, there may be moments where they are able to come into the office, but mostly, you should expect most of our employees will be working from home for the majority of at least till the end of the year. Isolation and uncertainty is taking a toll on mental well-being.
We've been making mental health resources available to Googlers and other employees during this time and continue to support our workforce as well as our users.
Thanks, Sundar. We received another COVID-related question asking, what is the company and its executives doing to help essential workers and/or its employees who have suffered economic hardships because of the current COVID-19 pandemic?
This is Eileen. I'll answer this question. As for essential workers and the general public, we know that health systems and public health infrastructure are stretched thin. So Google and Alphabet companies have been supporting organizations that enable frontline responders. And we've been supplementing public health efforts through both financial contributions, data science expertise, and technology. At the same time, we're, of course, helping our employees.
We early on implemented policies to help caregivers, including parents who are dealing with school and childcare closures, by temporarily expanding our carers' leave policy, giving up to 14 weeks of paid leave for any caregiver unable to work full-time. And as for our extended workforce, including service workers and outsourced operations around the world, Google has continued to pay everyone, even those affected by reduced office schedules. They have all been, and they continue to be, compensated for the time they would have worked. Google also established a COVID-19 fund to ensure all our temporary staff and vendors globally can take paid sick leave if they run out of vendor-provided sick leave. This would cover them if they have potential symptoms of COVID-19 or can't come to work because of sick leave.
Thanks, Eileen. Our next question relates to Waymo.
What is the time frame until autonomous technology passes regulatory approval in vehicles, and how will Alphabet monetize it, e.g., Waymo?
This is Sundar. I can take this question. Two parts to it. First, on regulatory approval. Since its start, Waymo has been focused on improving the world's access to mobility while saving thousands of lives lost in traffic crashes. That's the aspiration. Safety is our top priority when it comes to designing and building our vehicles, which to date have driven over 20 million miles autonomously on public roads across 25 U.S. cities. We've been actively working with federal and state agencies and the appropriate regulatory bodies. We were the first self-driving technology company to share a voluntary safety self-assessment with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. California DMV has issued Waymo an autonomous vehicle driverless testing permit.
Obviously, in Arizona, we are operating under the governor's executive order. We are very committed to doing this the right way. It's hard to forecast precise timelines for regulatory approvals. Our goal is to get to our goals as soon as possible while maintaining safety as our top priority. On monetization, the second part of the question, we're taking a long-term iterative approach focused on getting the experience right and the safety right. We see a number of business applications for our Waymo driver over time. One opportunity is to move people, what we call Waymo One. We are already running an early rider program and developing a public commercial ride-hailing service, moving people safely from point A to point B within the service territory we are operating in Phoenix. Longer term, we are also exploring incorporating the Waymo driver into privately owned vehicles.
The second approach is to move things Waymo Via. Our services include our Class A trucks, now testing in California, Arizona, and the Southwest US, as well as Waymo's local delivery service where we are delivering on behalf of partners like UPS and AutoNation. But monetization is still very early. We are very focused on getting safety right. And as part of that, we'll continue iterating here.
Thanks, Sundar. Next, we have a comment and a question regarding capital returns. We received a comment from a stockholder proposing a quarterly dividend with $0.10 per share as a starting point. We also received the following question: When will the company provide dividends?
T his is Ruth. I can take this question.
So we continue to believe a share repurchase program is the best approach for us because it provides flexibility, which is valuable given we operate in such dynamic and competitive areas. We do regularly evaluate our cash and capital structure, including the size and the pace, as well as the form of capital returns to stockholders, by which I mean we look at both dividends and share repurchase. And as I said, we believe a share repurchase program remains the best approach. Thanks, Ruth. Now, a question on YouTube. A few of our stockholders asked about the enforcement of YouTube's community guidelines, in particular our view on removal of inappropriate content. Thanks, Kathryn. This is Kent, and I can answer this one. Our platforms have empowered a wide range of people and organizations from across the political spectrum, giving them new ways to reach their audiences.
Of course, while we welcome that broad set of voices and viewpoints, we also have to balance that with being socially responsible, which is why we have community guidelines for YouTube and other services that prohibit things like content that endangers kids or incites violence. We are focused on addressing those challenges head-on by hiring thousands of people and investing millions of dollars in cutting-edge technologies to help us remove bad content, elevate authoritative content, and limit the spread of borderline content. Let me share just a few examples. In 2017, YouTube started applying advanced machine learning tools to flag content for human review, and in the fourth quarter of last year, we removed over five million videos from YouTube for violating our community guidelines. More than 90% of those were actually automatically flagged by our machine learning tools, so it's obviously a complex task at this scale.
Just as in an online context, it's never going to be perfect. But we have made great strides, and we continue to move forward. Thanks, Kent. The next question asks, the organization regularly makes new innovative products and services that failed after a short duration in the market due to lack of marketing or inadequate marketing channel. What are the strategic initiatives that Alphabet will take to improve the marketing to get the products and services visible and appealing to the consumer? This is Sundar. I can answer this. I'm sure I agree with the premise of the question. As a company, we've always worked on difficult and important ambitious problems. This is the approach which has led us to have nine products today, each of which have over a billion users and many more that are hugely popular and growing rapidly.
Obviously, when you do that, inevitably, there'll be products that don't get traction. And I don't think it's typically a lack of marketing or marketing channel as the issue. We have world-class teams working on it. And when we develop good products and meet our goal of making it helpful to our users and we truly raise the bar, we make sure people can find them and they use them. But it's true that some products that we launch don't succeed. And obviously, there could be a variety of reasons, the foremost reason being we work in a highly competitive and fast-moving industry, and sometimes you miss the mark. But we always do a postmortem. We learn from where we got things wrong and incorporate that into our future product development approaches. Thanks for the question. Thanks, Sundar.
The next question is, as Google grows, how is the company adapting its content policies to ensure fairness and a lack of bias? This is Kent. Let me respond on this one. There are two elements I can address here, as I'm not entirely sure which type of bias the questioner is thinking of. First, there's the potential for political bias. We have clear content policies, and our teams and algorithms enforce them without regard to political viewpoint. As I mentioned a moment ago, our platforms also have empowered a wide range of people and organizations to have a voice online. And as we've grown, we've invested in a wide range of raters and internal systems designed to provide the most useful and relevant information for our users, regardless of political viewpoint. Second, we're increasingly focused on bias more broadly in advanced technologies.
I've been personally involved in a lot of this as we've developed our AI policies and principles. We're optimistic about the promise of AI, but we also recognize that the results of some machine learning models can be affected by data that can amplify existing biases found in the real world, such as those related to race or gender. So it's critical to develop machine learning models that are fair and inclusive for everybody. Fairness is one of our core AI principles, and we're committed to making progress. In the last couple of years, we've developed tools and data sets that actually help us identify and carve out bias from these models, and we've offered many of these as open-source tools for the larger community.
Some of those tools include Fairness Indicators, our machine learning Fairness Gym, which is an open-source set of components for building machine learning models and simulations that can explore potential long-run impacts of machine learning decision systems and social environments. There's plenty more we've made available online in our AI sites or developer sites. So I'd encourage you to check it out. Thanks, Kent. And now for our final comment. This one relates to our board of directors. A stockholder submitted the following comment: Reduce the number on the board from 11 to just five. Thank you, Kathryn. This is John. I can respond to that comment. The Nominating and Governance Committee regularly reviews the appropriate size and compensation of the board. We look at the needs of the board's and its respective committees, as well as the qualifications of candidates in light of those needs.
As I mentioned in my opening remarks, our board works closely to ensure appropriate oversight in many areas, and it's something we take very seriously. Diversity and inclusion are values critical to our success and innovation. So we remain committed to diversity in all areas of business, including the boardroom. Over the last few years for open positions on Alphabet's board, we have interviewed a diverse set of qualified candidates, taking into consideration diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, age, education, cultural background, and professional experiences. We've been lucky and fortunate to have found many outstanding candidates that way, as exemplified by the recent additions of Frances Arnold and Robin Washington. They both bring extensive leadership and management experience in areas as wide-ranging as finance and operations, life sciences, and bioengineering, and they also, of course, enhance our gender and ethnic diversity.
We depend on our directors' diverse range of perspectives and judgment to guide our strategies and monitor their execution. So we feel that our current board's size, structure, and composition provide us with the best ability to represent the interests of our shareholders. Now, that concludes the question and answer period. I'd like to thank you all for the questions you submitted. I appreciate the time you took to join us today and for your continued support of Alphabet. Please take care, be safe, and we'll see you all next year.