I mean the article mentioned he had "restricted stock" (I guess it's like options?); I don't know how many he was entitled to, but the stock price of Apple has gone through a split and has become 40x worth as much today.
The value of a stock grant is not determined by future growth. You can buy stock on the open market on the same day an employee vests, and all else equal non-employees should by MORE stock than employees, due to diversification concerns.
RSU grants are afaik usually on a per unit basis based on the price when you start. So if the current stock price is $20/share and you get $20k worth of RSUs then that means you get 1k shares. If the value per share goes up to $100 then your RSUs are now worth $100k. This is why some tech company employees have massive stock compensations, the stock has gone up a lot since their initial offer.
Im sure there are different ways of doing it, but this is not my experience.
In my experience, you get X RSU stocks, and or Y dollars worth of stock. It is then locked up for 3-4 years so if you took stock it may have increased in value.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/restricted-stock-unit.a...