It's really amazing to the degree that every employee is working to enrich the executives and ownership/board.

Don't misunderstand me, obviously every employee gets paid--some handsomely--and at some companies employees get equity ownership. But I think most employees would be shocked if they knew how much execs make, how much stock they have, and the financial upside associated with those things.

It's not bad or wrong or whatever, but I think most employees would be shocked.

Three examples:

- My first tech company I was an entry level employee and worked my way up to be a Director. As an entry level marketer I made $55K. After being there for 5 years I realized that most execs made around $200K. I was baffled. It truly shocked me. I thought they made like $80K lol (I was an idiot). The other thing that amazed me was that they gave 'strategically important employees' equity and made a big deal about this. I got like 15,000 shares. I then learned that my boss had 850,000 shares. Again, not wrong or bad, I was just amazed.

- Second tech company was larger and a lot of people were well paid. But our exec team made literally millions (our President and CEO made over $20M) when we were acquired by a PE firm. Again, most employees had no idea. The people on my marketing team in the company thought the CEO made like $800K in the acquisition. He made over $20M. And the C-suite made between $1M and $5M. The rank and file at the company just had no context. And would have been baffled had they known.

- At another tech company where I was finally an exec, it's really the equity that would shock people--comparing the amount of equity a VP had (150,000 shares) compared to front line employees (5,000)--and then comparing VPs to to the CEO and President (3M shares) etc.

Again, it's just an observation, but as I've moved up the ranks, my eyes have opened to the degree that employees making $60K each year are working to make founders and execs filthy rich. And again, there's nothing wrong with that, it's just surprised me how CLUELESS most employees are about this at tech companies.