That's of course perfectly fine, but the stock will re-rate to a P/E of 15 - as it has for Facebook - and long time average stock price growth shrinks from 15%+

That's of course perfectly fine, but the stock will re-rate to a P/E of 15 - as it has for Facebook - and long time average stock price growth shrinks from 15%+/yr to 5%/yr - which will suddenly halve the compensation of the staff, who suddenly realize that stock- or option-based comp can go down as well as up... (Of course you could then also draw the conclusion that a company in maintenance mode doesn't need 45,000 people earning half a million a pop, but can make do with paying half as much to half as many -- but that might be a bridge too far for a corp that is still on course to earn $60 billion EBITDA a year...)