While you're absolutely right, I can tell you first-hand that managers at Amazon tell their engineers that if the stock falls, they'll get more stock. Furtherm

While you're absolutely right, I can tell you first-hand that managers at Amazon tell their engineers that if the stock falls, they'll get more stock. Furthermore, Amazon has a "target compensation" value for every employee, and this target implicitly assumes a 15% YoY gain in stock price. When employees with RSUs are given their compensation breakdown, they don't get to see the target comp, but they do see their expected compensation listed as part of their "total compensation." So, yes, you're right that people shouldn't be counting their chickens before they're hatched -- but Amazon strongly encourages employees to do so, and pretends that the chickens are fully hatched during compensation reviews. Source: Spent almost six years working at AWS.