We can talk about normal expectations without having to explicitly state that black swan events can happen. If you took a stance of “I’m not going to take any pay in equity because I saw what happened in 2001” you would have left millions of dollars on the table over the last 20 years.

Stocks underperforming cash for three years is hardly a black swan event; it happens in about a fifth of 3-year periods.

I’m clearly talking about the early 00 market crash as the black swan. Some depreciation is expected to happen sometimes. Obviously.

Underperforming cash is very different than underperforming cash by 60%.

I think that once you start looking for hard evidence on software company stocks, you're in for a learning experience.

? I’ve been in this industry for…a while. I watched people around me packing up their cubicles in 2001. What is it that you think I am missing? Genuine question because I’m not sure how to interpret your comment at all. Tech stocks have had strong growth as a sector for about 2 decades. Even if they hadn’t, even if they had been flat for 20 years, companies are still paying out $100k+ a year in equity (in addition to base salary).

I thought I was going to be rich with my first job at a startup out of college but the dot com bust basically made it all worthless. Stock is great but cash would have been better.

What would you have done with the cash? Hold it? That’s how the poor stay poor.

You aren't guaranteed your salary either though and in many of those cases in the 2000's workers were laid off. Being paid entirely in cash salary doesn't make you immune to market turbulence.

It happened 1 year in 20, after an incredible run up, and good companies recovered.