Since the company knows the comp will drop at year four, they will give a large grant for the minority they really need to retain. For rank and file employees,

Since the company knows the comp will drop at year four, they will give a large grant for the minority they really need to retain. For rank and file employees, those grants are relatively rare and many will stay anyway because they aren’t optimizing their comp. I think at the executive level, not getting such a grant is tantamount to being fired because executives don’t get overlooked.