And surprise, surprise, when SEC filings maven Michele Leder compiled her list of the year's most egregious bits of corporate hide-and-go seek, guess what dominated the list? Tech.

The highlights:

The $30 million package Zynga gave Barry Cottle to come over from Electronic Arts and fill the role of chief revenue officer at the social gaming company.

A February filing in which Netflix became what Ms. Leder believes to be the first company ever to file SEC documents averring a need to “repair the damage to our brand"—after the company ticked off customers by changing its pricing structure.

Yahoo's laughable claim that Jerry Yang resignation from the company's board of directors had nothing to do with any disagreements he may have had with others at the company.

The Dell executive who got $1.9 million in relocation expenses to move 200 miles from Round Rock to Plano, Texas.

Better luck next year.

The lionhead and the lion.

We're on the Footnoted.com email list, a daily serving of excessive executive compensation and corporate lavishness, but today's missive about CEO compensation had a different tone. The blog took a look at what Mr. Jobs, who has been taking a $1 salary since 2003 even as Apple's stock soared, is likely to take with him in the way of retirement benefits, severance bonus and other good-bye perks. "The answer: not much."

Mr. Jobs owns more than $2 billion worth of Apple stock, it's true--which means the company's two percent stock drop following the announcement personally cost him more than $40 million.

"Otherwise, however, Jobs has no employment agreement," Footnoted says. "No severance agreement. No change-in-control agreement. No gold-plated pension or lifetime health benefits. That's as of Apple's most recent filings: Jobs and Apple may even now be hashing out some lavish retirement agreement. We'll see."

But it seems unlikely. Besides his corporate jet, Footnoted reports, Mr. Jobs, has been pretty frugal for being one of the most successful CEOs of all time.

Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha.

Google's announcement of its $12.5 billion Motorola buy blindsided the tech and Wall Street press this morning, suggest it either kept the deal very tightly under wraps--which the Goog is not known for being good at--or it happened very quickly. But Motorola started hinting at an acquisition as far back as March, according to SEC filings dug up by the fine print experts at Footnoted, in which the company started playing with its severance packages in the event of a "change in control," suggesting serious talks with Google may be months old.

Just over two weeks ago, the handset-maker filed a severance plan attached to its quarterly report that alluded to "the possibility of a Change in Control," effective February 15. The 10-K that Motorola filed on February 18 had a lot of other employment-related agreements appended, Footnoted notes, suggesting the company was considering the possibility of an acquisition much earlier than anyone suspected--and today's news suggests a Google buy may have been the alluded-to "change in control." Perhaps the 800 lb. gorilla can walk softly after all?

"The Company recognizes that the possibility of a Change in Control (as hereinafter defined) may exist from time to time," the filing begins obliquely, "and that this possibility, and the uncertainty and questions it may raise among management, may result in the departure or distraction of management personnel to the detriment of the Company and its stockholders."

The specifics of how Motorola planned to compensate its management and provide for employees in the event of redundancies were not declared until two weeks ago, however, although there was a brief description filed of the plan in a March 15 proxy. Among other provisions, Chairman and CEO Sanjay Jha stands to make more than $90 million, although the benefits for new executives were reduced "from a 3-times severance multiple to a 2-times severance multiple" after three years.