| Something about it does seem a little odd - and it's tricky to read between the lines to figure out what caused this (exactly as you say, because they've phrased it entirely within positive messaging rather than just stating the problem). My guess would be that they feel (or some employees feel) that they've over-rewarded some early employees who are now motivated to stay at the company largely for the purposes of vesting stock options rather than to engage fully. That said, there are a whole slew of really tricky things around options and compensation here. What's the comparative stock/option holding granted to executive/C-level staff, and are they under the same scrutiny to measure their performance and output? Generally I think it's typical for there to be an order of magnitude difference between stock holdings for investors & high-level executives relative to even the first few full-time hires. To play devil's advocate, it's 'understandable' that if you want to run the fastest, cheapest ship that you would simply want to get an employee in a seat, have them build/ship/market/sell the product for a few years and then have the employee move on if & when their productivity drops. Continuing that idea (and I'd hope that Monzo nor many other tech startups are culturally this cynical) - it reduces the need for career growth planning, management expertise, and reduces the risk of pesky situations like the employee remembering bad company decisions or gaining too much access or influence within the organization, etc. There are more successful ways to handle those cases (although they require effort from the company, and their results should be scrutinized by staff), and employers that want to retain knowledge workers will find ways to incentivize them to keep their staff on-board and effective. There are few better incentives than continued business success (particularly where the employee can engage in force-multiplying their own success via building the company/product) and challenging technical or business problems. |