Comment by ralferoo

I worked in the UK at a FAANG, so I was on a different bonus system, but my US colleagues had a very significant lock-in. Both your starting bonus and annual bonuses were implemented in terms of share grants that vested at 25% each year. I heard from several of these colleagues that the annual bonuses were often about the same as the base salary, so for some of these guys it was around $200k. So, at any given time they had between $150k and $200k locked up in un-vested shares that would be lost if they left the company. It's framed as a benefit rather than paying someone to stay, but ultimately it's structured this way so it serves the same purpose of providing a strong disincentive to leaving.