Another way to look at it is that Twitter's first trade on the NYSE in November 2013 was at $45.10, and today, almost a year and a half later, it closed at around $42. That is not a whole lot of return for what is supposed to be a growth stock. It's also not a particularly great story to tell prospective employees if you're trying to attract them with stock-based compensation.

Public companies give RSUs to employees. Which don't need a grown story.

If the share price isn't going up, one would rather get paid in cash.

One would generally always rather get paid in cash, which can be used to invest in a diverse portfolio of valuable investments.

I got options at my current employer even when they were publicly listed when I got the offer.

Well, chilling is perhaps still the right thing to do, but the daily view does tell a different story:

http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=TWTR&p=D&b=5&g=0&id=p456401...

Yes, TWTR does seem to move 10% or more on any news, but that isn't "very common" in my opinion.

Is there an alternative for twitter?