Whenever a company incurs a material event, it must be publicly reported in fairly short order in SEC filings. A $150 million outlay? That would seem material even for Google.
No it's not - employee compensation is an ongoing expense. You don't see Goldman Sachs doing disclosure everytime someone gets a bonus!
Anyway, Google discloses stock grants every quarter.
Stock-Based Compensation (SBC) – In the fourth quarter of 2010, the total charge related to SBC was $396 million, compared to $276 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.
We currently estimate SBC charges for grants to employees prior to January 1, 2011 to be approximately $1.6 billion for 2011. This estimate does not include expenses to be recognized related to employee stock awards that are granted after December 31, 2010 or non-employee stock awards that have been or may be granted.
http://investor.google.com/earnings/2010/Q4_google_earnings....