[potatolicious]

The most egregious and common one I hear is back-loading options vesting (e.g., vest 5% in 1st year, 10% next year, etc) - note that Amazon already does this, though standard is still linear. Dragging out the frequency of vesting is also common to try and create as many unvested options as possible when an employee chooses to leave the company.

One big takeaway I've had from these conversations is how many founders do not see equity as compensation earned, but as some sort of gift to be granted to the virtuous and loyal.

It's a little depressing that the frank answer to "why not vest quarterly" has been "because if they leave we don't get as many options back". It's interesting that we never think about cash compensation that way but do for equity compensation.