Here's the problem with your position. If the employer says "You're only providing $X in value (where your RSUs amount to $X+Y so now we're going to fire you o

Here's the problem with your position. If the employer says "You're only providing $X in value (where your RSUs amount to $X+Y so now we're going to fire you or you'll agree to only take $X in RSUs" then, by working at a startup, you have a significant downside (the startup could well go belly up) but no upside. Why no upside? Because your capital gain on the shares you took a pay cut for might at any time (for unvested stock) be reduced to your market value... which you could've simply earned elsewhere by taking that as a salary. It's risk versus reward. What we see here, if true, is that the risk remains the same but the reward has been significantly chopped. Dustin Markowitz [1] is a billionaire, largely by virtue of the "skill" of being Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard roommate. He "earned" ~$5 billion from Facebook, which if memory serves, is less than Steve Jobs made from Apple's second stint (where he, you know, turned a company on the verge of bankruptcy into a $300+ billion juggernaut with $80+ in cash and $100+ billion in annual revenue). Did Muskowitz provide comparable value? Of course not. But he did take a gamble, like anyone joining (or founding) a startup. If this pseudo-clawback [2] behaviour becomes commonplace, it undermines the entire startup scene (IMHO). [1]: http://whoownsfacebook.com/ http://whoownsfacebook.com/ [2]: I say "pseudo-clawback" because "clawback" has a far more evil meaning. Just look at Skype. http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/06/27/skypes-evil-ways-cont/ http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/06/27/skypes-evil...