Stock compensation gives Big Tech workers a powerful reason to stay. Layoffs and the AI boom are changing the equation.

Rob Waters (left), Julie Zhu (center), and Yousuf Imran (right) weighed Big Tech stock compensation as they considered their next career moves.

Rob Waters (left), Julie Zhu (center), and Yousuf Imran (right) Big Tech stock can be worth a fortune — if workers remain employed long enough to get it.

Layoffs can suddenly wipe out stock workers were waiting to collect.

The AI boom is creating another potential path to equity riches: joining a startup or building one.

The day after Rob Waters learned of his layoff from Google last year, he was encouraged to apply for a new role there as an AI sales specialist.

Google soon offered him the position, with a six-figure salary.

Waters wasn't sure he wanted to return.

He'd grown frustrated with the bureaucracy at Google and how the reorganization that eliminated his team had been handled.

But walking away meant giving up about a few hundred thousand dollars in unvested equity.

"I killed myself working and dedicating myself, and then all I got to show for it was getting let go," said the 42-year-old, who lives in San Francisco.

He'd also dreamed of starting his own company.

The layoff, he said, "ripped the bandaid off." Waters decided to bet on himself and pursue Kanawai AI, a startup he cofounded.

"All the equity that was unvested was gone," he said.

"I went from making very high six figures to zero." Rob Waters chose to pursue an AI startup rather than return to Google and continue vesting his equity.