Exactly, thats the best way to see it and makes the "Give back our stock" more ridiculous: employees get les money in cash because they decided to invest some part of their salaries in the company shares, so, if the company go to IPO and they get rich they are not geting rich because of how much value they provide to the company, they get rich because they could recognize a great company in the early days and invest on it.
Is like saying to an angel you didn´t help me so much in your mentoring so give me your shares back.
I kind of understand why they want to stop giving them shares, as they no longer need funding from little people.
But it seems a lot like tearing up a term sheet 5 minutes from signing the final contract, just because you managed to shop for a better deal. It might be legal, but it's just not done.
That's the best way to look at it. All the talk of what is 'fair' misses the point - remuneration is not inherently fair, never has been. You can point to market forces or regulations or whatever, but there's no real and fair basis for most differences in income.
What we can be fair about is how we treat people, if we give them shares and later we wish we hadn't we should live with that gracefully. We can give them bonuses for both self-interested (motivate employees) or altruistic reasons (it happens!).
Maybe. Or how about this:
Charlie didn't make $20M for cooking. He effectively made a normal chef's salary, some of which he effectively invested into Google shares.
What's the issue? That a chef (unlike a banker or programmer) helps fund a company, and gets shares for it?