> If you feel that there's a good chance that the stock of the company you're working for is going to tank, take that as a sign that you should work somewhere else ;)

If you get $600k in cash, and you immediately exchange that into $600k in company stock (with no restrictions on when you can sell that stock), how could that possibly be a worse deal than getting $600k in company stock with restrictions on when you can sell?

Seems like a strawman, as no company is giving you the cash as a lump sum payment like that up front. Even if you get the option, which mostly you don't, it's between:

1. A grant at $Xk, converted to shares on start date and vesting proportionally over 4 years

or...

2. A salary bump equivalent to the grant in (1), paid out ~bi-weekly at (1/104)*$Xk. 104 being the amount of bi-weekly pay periods to occur over a 4 year span.

It's not a strawman, it's a direct response to grandparent comment in this thread, who said:

> getting the $100k worth of stocks a year is at least as good as just getting the cash

I am arguing that getting $100k worth of cash is always at least as good as getting $100k worth of stocks. You're saying that it's not realistic to have the option to get cash instead of stocks, and that's true but it's besides the point.