Been my opinion for a while now that any company that doesn't directly grant stocks to employees should be forbidden from using exempt status for those employee

Been my opinion for a while now that any company that doesn't directly grant stocks to employees should be forbidden from using exempt status for those employees. Want them to work more? Pay them. On the flipside, I have a buddy who is one of the best Java devs in the DFW area who refused to become a manager and threatened to take his talent elsewhere. They carved out entire new levels for his software engineer job just to keep him happy. Before this, they had up to SDE IV. He was SDE VI when he left to join a consultancy when his salary became a concern. The consultancy ended up placing him back at the place he had already been working for because the company suddenly had a huge knowledge vacuum, and they eventually offered him a new position at SDE VII to get him back on the team.