[aetherson]

"Pay cuts" via stock going down for the base company are pay cuts that do nothing to improve the company's financial position. Google-the-employer, even looking at them only as an employer, is no better off if employees have less total comp through stock losses than it is if they had stock gains. It does nothing to improve their bottom line -- and in fact, with the way that tech companies grant equity comp (by targeting a dollar amount at the time of the grant and then granting enough shares to hit that dollar amount), it actually worsens their position every time they give a grant (they have to give more shares to hit the same dollar amount).

In contrast, inflation or explicit wage cuts are things that, ceteris paribus, every employer would like to do, and does improve their bottom line. (But explicit wage cuts are such a morale killer that they're de facto impossible right now.)

[peyton]

Nah you record the expense over the vesting period. Google can just issue new shares. It’s not really worse unless things get really bad.