True, but this is a vanishingly small edge case. You generally have to be a certain person to negotiate something like this with a big company. Surely the "Ninth Cog Engineer From The Left" at Waymo will not have the negotiating power to get this kind of profit-sharing or pay-for-value comp package.

I recall reading somewhere that Waymo had retention problems due to many of the early engineers were given so much money that they simply no longer cared to work. I don't know how true that is, but I believe it.

The Verge reported on this [1] in 2017-

> Bloomberg says that early staffers “had an unusual compensation system” that multiplied staffers' salaries and bonuses based on the performance of the self-driving project. The payments accumulated as milestones were reached, even though Waymo remains years away from generating revenue. One staffer eventually “had a multiplier of 16 applied to bonuses and equity amassed over four years.” The huge amounts of compensation worked — for a while. But eventually, it gave many staffers such financial security that they were willing to leave the cuddly confines of Google.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/13/14599186/google-waymo-sel...

I think the same deal applied to all projects at X at the time. The other projects were just not all successful.

This has more to do with negotiation skills. Anthony Levandowki also negotiated deal with Uber to pay him more money. He knew his value and negotiated hard, and got paid by 2 companies.

Every engineer should learn from Anthony about understanding the value and negotiating hard with companies. Companies will pay up for in demand skills.