There are many forms of golden handcuffs. Public companies gives you X dollars worth of shares at the current price of your start date over 4 years. Meaning if

There are many forms of golden handcuffs. Public companies gives you X dollars worth of shares at the current price of your start date over 4 years. Meaning if today the shares are worth $1 and they want to give you $100k of shares, then you get 100k shares over 4 years. If after 2 years, the unvested shares (50k) 3x in value, ($150k) you have to stay to continue to earn the same number of shares, but are worth 3x what they originally were.