> Especially with high performance ratings, she should have been getting bonus over target and extra stock.

In these companies each level has a compensation bracket. With high rating it’s easier to hit that upper limit and without timely promotion total compensation can take a nosedive when initial grant dies out.

Not sure how that turns into a decrease in total comp instead of flattening out, unless the initial grant put them over the limit in the first place. In which case it was a really generous recruitment bonus.

It’s four years of growth that makes the initial grant look generous. For example $GOOG was like $800 in April’17. It’s over $2250 right now. $AMZN went from $900 to $3300 during the same time.