[charlief]

If I told you where I work, when I started working there, it doesn't make sense that you'll be able to derive my motivations or my character. Of course compensation is always a factor in choosing a place to work, but I am sure each individual case is so different and so complex that holding them to a greed metric is a little heavy-handed.

It isn't even a question about character here because if these people were concerned about money before everything else, many of the smartest Silicon Valley people could have had a job on Wall Street a long time ago. On Wall Street, almost 100% of the time you'll be very well off (remember how much GDP goes through that street). Wall Street will take brains anytime. If not Wall Street, FB IPO expectations haven't changed significantly in a year, these people would have moved over ages ago if they wanted a big equity cut.

There is only so much liquidity to go around with 1700+ employees and a marginally liquid market on secondmarket. For me, second market changes the game a bit because the error in valuation is potentially a lot smaller (there was a very good discussion on FB over here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1719975). Either way, I wonder the size of the equity packages involved. Even if they are large, someone like Lars is very well off and spent most of his whole life building things so I don't think he is a jump to FB for the IPO kind of guy. Choosing where to work, when to work is a complex decision and not indicative of any character most of the time.