[marssaxman]

An RSU is like a pre-order for a share of stock. Your employer gives you an RSU with a specified vesting date as an incentive to continue working for the company until that date. On the vesting date, the RSU magically turns into a share of company stock, which is then yours to keep or sell as you please. If you leave, any remaining un-vested RSUs simply evaporate.

Holding shares in the same company that pays your salary for is not great from a risk-management point of view, so most people sell their shares as soon as they vest. You can reinvest the proceeds in a mutual fund or something.

Golden handcuffs only work if you let them. I make a habit of completely ignoring RSUs and acting as though they have no value. They play no part in my decisions about where to work or how I feel about the compensation package. If the salary is good I take the job, if not I go somewhere else. If the RSUs turn out to be worth something, then yay, it's a bonus! But most of the time they are not as good a deal as company recruiters would like you to think they are - if they actually were worth the cash equivalent a recruiter will quote you, the company would save themselves the trouble of managing the RSU program and just give you the cash instead. The company saves money by offering you RSUs because you will never be able to cash in on all of them - you will always walk away from the company with un-vested RSUs at some point. That's not a terrible thing, just don't let yourself count RSUs as real income until after they actually vest.