The "Google compensation package" (not Salary) is making it a realistic option for Google employees to buy homes in the Bay Area after a few years of work. (Unfortunately thereafter, the RSU pyramid makes it really hard to leave Google, since you'd be giving up a virtual fortune, shimmering off in the distance like a mirage...)
Your startups... aren't doing any of that. Most of them pay shit-all for equity and salary, even for early engineers, even for senior-level employees. On top of that, most of them fail, leaving engineers with worthless stock and a hole in their bank account balances.
I'm sorry, this is a simple game of economics - if you want those engineers, you need to give them more in their package. Deal with it.
> Unfortunately thereafter, the RSU pyramid makes it really hard to leave Google, since you'd be giving up a virtual fortune, shimmering off in the distance like a mirage...
Never understood that argument, how is it different from your base salary, isn't it a similar mirage? Per year you get XX USD in RSUs vesting, you don't have to consider granted RSUs as being "yours".
> Never understood that argument, how is it different from your base salary, isn't it a similar mirage? Per year you get XX USD in RSUs vesting, you don't have to consider granted RSUs as being "yours".
If you can/do get an offer that replaces your outstanding RSUs and you're willing to move on, then none of this really matters - you are going to move on and the whole conversation is moot.
However, RSUs are typically based on looking back at previous work, not forward like a salary. If you did a ton of work at the beginning of your career and earned a huge stack of RSUs, you've sunk a cost... but one that is easily recoverable simply by waiting. Even if your output drops.
The biggest problem is that people are very often more productive and energetic in this field at the beginning of their careers, so much so that big companies don't even want to touch older people - built-in Silicon Valley ageism. And that's its own whole can of worms...
So after a few years when their productivity begins to slide and their life priorities change, they get married and have kids and buy cars and homes and pay for private schools... and getting a new job becomes more difficult by virtue of ageism and the sheer volume of outstanding RSUs a company would have to offer you making you a very unattractive candidate, people find they literally cannot tolerate the risk of moving on.
I've heard stories of people willing to accept fates such as being "roofed" (see Hooli on Silicon Valley) for months at a time looking for a new position internally while learning to be a world class barista in the employee lounge, simply because by sitting on their ass and doing nothing, they can afford to buy a house next year, but they can't find a new job because nobody is willing to give them the half a million they feel is owned to them as what is essentially back pay. It becomes a working pension, albeit one where the end goal isn't funding retirement, it's the freedom to move on. This is so common a phenomenon it has a name: Golden Handcuffs.
So yeah, some percentage sunk cost, some percentage risk tolerance, some percentage boredom tolerance.
It is about 80% an instance of the sunk cost fallacy, but RSU payout is based on past performance, so higher performing employees will be granted more RSUs. That means that if you got a 10% RSU bonus over average due to performance, you'd be losing out on a portion of your compensation for your past work.
Also there's something to be said for "the mirage I know is better than the mirage I don't know". Although in general I'd agree, if you're capable of performing well at one of the big guys, you can probably go to any of them, and get a starting bonus to offset your "losses".
Your startups... aren't doing any of that. Most of them pay shit-all for equity and salary, even for early engineers, even for senior-level employees. On top of that, most of them fail, leaving engineers with worthless stock and a hole in their bank account balances.
I'm sorry, this is a simple game of economics - if you want those engineers, you need to give them more in their package. Deal with it.