[kortilla]

Refreshers never make up for the monster gains those early grants get at startup growth rates.

If you joined Tesla in 2019 and got a 5 year grant worth 1 million dollars, that is roughly 48000 shares over 5 years.

Even assuming a flat refresher, on that 5th year you would get another $200k worth of stock at the now 10x share price, coming in at like 850 shares. Compare that to the 9600 shares you have coming in from that initial grant. It’s a huge dive in total comp after that initial grant runs out even with a good refresher program.

The only companies where this isn’t a problem are big ones with mediocre growth (Google, Amazon, Apple, Netflix-ish, etc).

Nvidia is another example of a company that effectively has employees pulling in multiple millions a year in stock that will fizzle out 4 years after their huge surge last year.

When you go from a TC of $3mil/year down to $300k/year, you definitely reevaluate if it’s time to retire or go do something new.