The other thing is that the laid off employees will lose all their unvested RSUs. These shares were granted as compensation for past performance but they can now be conveniently clawed back by the company just because they decide to lay you off. Stock can be a large part of someone's compensation in a tech company. Companies shouldn't be allowed to benefit this way if they decide to lay off employees.
How is that legal? I thought the entire point of delayed vesting was to disincentivize jumping ship. If they're the ones throwing you overboard clawing back RSUs seems like a roundabout form of wage theft.
The legalese around it is that it’s always contingent on your employment on those futures dates. It’s based on past performance, yes, but it’s not payment for past work (that’s what bonus is for), its incentive to stay longer and contribute to company’s success. When you are out of the door (for whatever reason) company looses need to incentivize you to:(
I always viewed them as future comp that was locked at a certain rate (in terms of number of shares per quarter). I got four years of unvested stock on day 1 when I joined a tech company, why on earth would I think I'm entitled to all that if I leave before it's vested?
If you see it as dangling future compensation in front of you then you wouldn't, obviously. But then why is it structured in that manner? What's the purpose?
If you view it as a signing bonus it makes perfect sense. They want to get you in the door but also don't want you to take advantage of them by quitting immediately. In that case you wouldn't be entitled to it if you left voluntarily or were fired for cause but being laid off is entirely their choice.
> But then why is it structured in that manner? What's the purpose?
This is bizarre. When you agree to take a $100k base salary, you don't get all $100k on the first day; your salary is split into pay periods, and if you leave earlier (voluntary or not) then you don't get the rest of the year's salary by default (severance aside).
I'll agree with you that RSUs for public companies should not have cliffs. But the idea that you agree to a large amount of compensation up-front (so that re-negotiation is infrequent) which is then paid out in portions on a regular basis is very standard, for both cash and equity.
It’s structured that way to disincentivize leaving voluntarily, which I think is fine. What’s the problem with that? And why would that imply that if I’m laid off, I’m still entitled to that future compensation?
In the worst case, it's highly misleading. Imagine you get paid a pittance but with a huge RSU grant vesting on a 2 year cliff. Salary 50k, total comp 500k. Then they fire you after 23 months. You took the job because of the stock grants, you had no intention of quitting, but they got 2 years of good talent for 50k.
Well sure, we could throw out all kinds of theoretically abusive situations, but how often does that happen in the real world? I haven't seen any companies granting RSUs that pay a pittance in salary. And it seems many tech companies have dropped their one year cliff as well. Who has a two year cliff?
Now to be clear, stock options are completely different, and in the vast majority of cases, I'd value those at zero or near-zero.
> I haven't seen any companies granting RSUs that pay a pittance in salary.
If you recognize something as wrong in principle when taken to the extreme shouldn't you also regard milder instances to be wrong as well? "Well sure, if you steal $1M that's obviously immoral but that guy only stole $100."
Of course in this case I recognize that there's quite a bit of uncertainty over how exactly the intent and representation of RSUs ought to be interpreted. I had always seen them as akin to a signing bonus but it's clear now that many people don't share that perspective.
I know cisco doesn't do yearly vesting but at the companies that follow yearly vesting, losing job a week or a month or even 6 months before next vesting date is absolutely wage theft unless they do a full or pro-rated vesting of shares in the upcoming tranche.
It's not wage theft, by any legal definition. The terms you agree to when you take the job are extremely clear. Wild to think that you're entitled to whatever you want, despite agreeing to the terms.
The practices that consumer protection laws guard against often historically took the form of contracts so I'm not sure you've got much of an argument there. IMO the much stronger position is to argue the intent behind the common practice but cisco vesting monthly seems like a decent counterpoint.
My argument is that it’s not wage theft by any legal definition.
And yes, obviously a contract can be declared void, but have consumer protection agencies started going after companies for not vesting immediately after a layoff? If not, then I don’t see how that’s relevant.
No they don't. I worked there until recently. They do bimonthly vesting I believe, or something close to it; I had somewhere between 5 and 10 vesting events per year. There is a 1 year cliff sometimes, but that's not the same thing.
