Stripe and Lyft are definitely not aiming to avoid upfront sticker cost with their 1 year grant scheme.

An exceedingly charitable view is that they're limiting downside, but realistically they're limiting upside so that you don't end up with people reaching targeted compensation for the next 4 years in a year or two and then leaving regardless of unvested shares

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But I also mentioned in a comment above, I think my view is skewed because I negotiate base aggressively

As an L6 I make 250k base, and my initial grant was just over 600k in RSUs at a non-FAANG company. I think that's a higher base than median but lower equity than median for FAANG

Why? Unless you’re sure that the stock price will tumble, it makes no sense to increase your base pay aggressively. Most higher engineering levels will top out their base in the 200-300 range and all the rest of compensation will be via RSU.

We're barely a year removed from some of the most volatile stock market action since 2008

Barely removed from a lot of people taking massive haircuts as COVID darlings are down 50%+ from ATH

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To me equity is an investment you can't back out of for 4 years.

I'm not sure the bottom isn't going to fall off the market for tech period, so I'm happy to trade equity for the ability to have some control over my investment