[joshuamorton]

There are no companies where refreshers exceed or match the initial grant.

At Google, they're between 25 and 50%, depending on a lot of stuff. My initial grant was ~150k, my first refresher was ~40k, and it's a wash if my 4th year refresh will match my first year, that will likely come down to if I make L5 or not.

[Bahamut]

At Apple, they are very generous with refreshers - my initial grant was $105k, and my refresh grant was $125k and I expect at least similar, if not more, for my refresher in a couple of months. The only reason my refresh did not exceed my initial grant was because my initial grant climbed almost 40% in value in that time.

[throwaway7443]

Counter-example from Apple: I spent 4 years there getting good performance reviews without a single refresh grant, and left on my 4 year anniversary. Most of my peers claim to have gotten one small refresh grant in that time, but certainly not one every year. Maybe it varies by team.

[Bahamut]

I have been told there is guidance that generally that either management gives a lot of stock or none.

It probably does also vary with your role/responsibilities - I am a software engineer in SWE on high visibility/impact work. Apple does definitely does make you earn refreshes - they don't give them for average performance oftentimes is my understanding, there seems to be a lot of stories out there that this is the case.

[twblalock]

I’ve received refreshes larger than my initial grant, so there is at least one company that does it.