This happened to me during an IPO. Itās the risk you take by accepting a job offer that includes deferred compensation, but it also sucks. In my case I quit shortly after because it was infuriating to realize how much energy Iād devoted to making my boss rich.
Itās easier to tolerate at a large company than one in which you know and see the founder every day, especially if youāve bought into the āweāre all in this togetherā corporate nonsense. It showed me how disposable I was and how irrelevant my work was to the founderās true motivation, which was not to build a better world with our products but really just to make himself rich.