[caseysoftware]

They are, it's called stock options.

The challenge is that to successfully cash out, ALL the pieces of the company have to work together and effectively to some degree.

It's the single best demonstration that company/product success is a team effort.

[vishnugupta]

> The challenge is that to successfully cash out, ALL the pieces of the company have to work together and effectively to some degree.

In theory, yes. However if you look at Google and FB a lion's share of their revenue is through ads. Yet they employ thousands of engineers and pay them extremely handsomly to chase all sorts of projects and moonshots most of which are inconsequential.

My favourite hypothesis is that they keep the smartest engineers hand-cuffed in gold and ask them to dig-a-hole-fill-a-hole just so that they don't go somewhere else to build a competing product. They succeed by and large. In India for instance a small/medium startup has no chance in hell to match Google's total comp, let alone other perks. Not only is cash and RSU handsome but also they get yearly RSU refreshers. The kind of money Google pays just blows my mind.

[knowtheworld]

I thought most stock options are worth like x% of your base salary. They usually can boost the total salary on a certain level but not a crazy amount?

[caseysoftware]

Yes, that's how they're issued.

But if they're still valued that years later, you've done something wrong. (You as in the team.)