It's a gesture, but the issue is that salary and bonus are often a smaller part of executive compensation.

The equity grant that they receive is often millions more than the salary and the company performance bonus.

I think forgoing the equity and instead adding it to the severance pool would be truly owning up to the decisions made by executive management.

Looking at SEC filings, he received a grant of 612,499 shares of stock on July 8, vesting quarterly over 4 years. That means ~153k shares will vest in 2023. Zoom stock is up $4 based on the announcement, making his RSUs worth over $600k more. He gave up just over $300k in cash compensation to do so. That's an ROI of 100% in one day.

It would have gone up anyway just based on the workforce cuts, no? Also, I think it's better to look at the price over time rather than assume the pop from an announcement is the new baseline.

It's not that I think the guy is a saint or anything, but many CEOs conduct layoffs and write about how sad they are without making any financial sacrifice. So even a limited gesture of giving up ~30% of his potential gains this year is unusual by prevailing norms.