RSUs are not "gifted." They are a part of one's compensation package, and you have to work for them. Consider this scenario: a company offers me 10,000 RSUs wh

RSUs are not "gifted." They are a part of one's compensation package, and you have to work for them. Consider this scenario: a company offers me 10,000 RSUs when its shares are valued at $50/share. When the company goes public the value of the shares soon drops to $20/share. What I thought was worth $500,000 is now worth just $200,000 (pre-tax). That's a huge difference. Had the company's shares been valued at $20 the time I was offered a position, I might have negotiated for more of them. Now, to be fair, maybe salary plus $200,000 is still the best compensation package (and overall outcome) available to me, but that doesn't mean that it was risk-free or cost-free. As for the cost of purchasing 10,000 shares of Facebook stock outright, yes this is expensive. But you can easily establish a meaningful leveraged position through the use of options if you have the conviction. Also, keep in mind that this is precisely what employees do when they fail to sell their shares when they first have the chance. A Facebook employee who has $500,000 in newly-vested shares that can be sold, but who doesn't sell, is in effect purchasing $500,000 in Facebook shares in the hopes that they will rise in price. If they fall in price, his or her loss is still very much a loss, even if it looks less painful because the shares were purchased with labor instead of cash.