It is in fact not the practice of most publicly traded companies to award equity outside the tech company, even to highly-compensated employees.
I haven't worked at another large corporation since then but I thought that was fairly generous and I still have quite a bit of CSCO from that program.
Given that, 401k stock contributions, ESOP & RSU I think we are right at the line of “expecting” equity as part of your comp for most public companies. It’s close enough that we can presume it’s a standard benefit anyway.
[0] https://rewards.aon.com/en-us/insights/articles/2020/how-com...
But if it doesn’t do well, I lose my job and have nothing to fall back on.
Surely it’s better to have a diverse portfolio?
Wouldn’t it be more sensible to buy options in your competitor and hedge your bets?
RSUs are equity.
If you get stock options, there are (very limited) circumstances where those options have favorable taxation relative to income, but it’s a gamble, if you follow the strategies that might yield tax advantages.