[nickbauman]

Maybe related: A top salesperson's commissions often makes them one of the highest paid persons in the org chart. Upper management always ends up thinking they can be replaced with cheaper people. So it gets very classically political.

[tankenmate]

And it's not just salespeople, a number of early stage engineers at Zynga were cut out of their equity / options entitlements by being relieved of duty just before the IPO; "got to be in it to win it" clauses in their employment contracts enabled this.

Point in lesson, always make sure accelerated vesting (equity, options, bonuses) clauses for not at fault firing, retrenchment, redundancy are in your employment contract.

[johnz133]

Can confirm. Friend of mine was cut out of a seven figure bonus weeks before the payout. Apparently he had no recourse legally either.