This is practically reasonable but at most companies everyone's in the same boat (including founders / management) that the big upside is going to be a potential future large liquidity event. In this case, the company seems to have transitioned to being content to operate with low growth and high margins. The right thing for an employee to ask for would actually be profit-sharing. I've heard, for instance, this is how The Mathworks (which makes MATLAB) works; employees get no equity but they don't care because the company is quite profitable and the employee profit sharing is generous.