[ghaff]

>Everyone's salary will naturally go down, since the shares they get each month are worth less, but it will feel better because "no layoffs and no pay cuts are necessary".

Leaving aside share buybacks, they're still paying the same salary and are still distributing shares from the same allocated pool.

On the other hand, if there is a big share price drop, a lot of your employees have suddenly taken a big compensation hit. (And they may have already paid taxes based on a higher share price at the time of vesting if they didn't immediately sell which is another argument not to hold onto a lot of RSU shares after vesting.)