It is severely limiting. You can’t sell private shares on the open market to buy a condo, pay off college debt, invest in your own company, quit and travel the world, etc. It could be decades before you receive the full share value. If hypothetical employee is working full time it’s probably because they don’t have enough assets 2M+ to live off passive income and need to work. Let’s say they are frugal and save $40k per year. If you have comp like a public co and receive $40k+ per year in shares does it really make sense to have 50%+ of your net worth in a single private tech company? It would probably work out great but 10 years is a long time to wait. I’m pretty sure there is issues with tax too but I don’t know the math.