You're right that those engineers would jump ship: their primary reason to stay (pay) evaporates into thin air. But more importantly, if Amazon wants to keep th

You're right that those engineers would jump ship: their primary reason to stay (pay) evaporates into thin air. But more importantly, if Amazon wants to keep them, they have to do one of two things: issue more stock, or compensate with better cash salaries. Both of those solutions further impact the stock price. Paying more cash reduces free cash flow...the main determinant of Amazon's obscenely high P/E ratios. Issuing more stock dilutes ownership. Both solutions will push downward on stock price. And of course, if the stock price drops, that completes the feedback loop...pushing more engineers out, with even more costly retention measures. Amazon has successfully grown in mind boggling ways, and they might continue growing for the foreseeable future. But the way they have structured incentives, it seems to me that if Amazon has a negative shock to the stock price, it could quickly death spiral into a threat to the whole company, with a simple feedback loop that causes all of their engineering talent to jump ship.