Your comment here is the exact attitude my post was about.  I, and everyone else, share your sentiment. That's what makes it cynical. Don gets an extra half million shares that will be wildly valuable if he succeeds, everyone else has the blow of that dilution spread out and doesn't feel the pinch, and we all just walk away.

I wouldn't even have made the post if he hadn't slapped on the sad face and ingratiated himself to the bludgeoned long-suffering shareholders about taking "zero" compensation.  The truth would have been "we don't have enough cash on hand for me to keep getting a paycheck, but that's ok, I'll work for shares instead. Think of it like paying your highly competent CEO with a high interest credit card! These shares will be worth much much more in the future, but you only have to pay me if we get bought out!"

I don't care about CEOs getting paid fat sums of money for their successes.  I care about them lying to their shareholders for goodwill (we're all suffering together, comrades! I'm not even getting paid anymore!) in an effort to keep the pitchforks at bay while lining their nests with lottery tickets in case they pull out the big score.

And yes, of course I won't complain if he gets a deal that gives me $15/share.  Nobody will complain that it would have been a few pennies higher without this little half million grant of shares. What's a few million dollars between friends, right?

Cheering for Don's success feels more and more like a bizarre case of Stockholm Syndrome.