It's cuffing season for chipmakers.
As their valuations skyrocket on the back of the AI boom, so do pay packages for employees whose compensation is tied to stock price. Some are anticipating paydays worth millions of dollars.
There's one catch: Stock payouts unlock over time, rewarding employees who stay with the company longer — and penalizing those who skip out sooner.
One Nvidia employee who plans to leave when their equity vests told Business Insider that doing so before would have a "big cost," adding, "If I wanted to leave now, I do not think I can command the salary I have now with another company."
It's a tactic that tech giants, such as Amazon and Google, have used for years to retain employees. Now that chipmakers are striking big deals to meet the growing demand for powering AI, the golden handcuffs at the US's three largest — Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom — are tightening.
Business Insider spoke about the impact of these packages with six current and former employees at Nvidia and Broadcom who are not authorized to speak to the press. Since both companies have over 36,000 employees receiving a variety of compensation structures, we also worked with Levels.fyi, which tracks employee compensation more broadly in Silicon Valley.
It could take up to four years for some to get the full payout. However, the skyrocketing value of stock awards means some employees are already earning buckets of compensation, which in Nvidia's case has tipped some to coast into a "semi-retirement" mode.
"A lot of them have families," one Nvidia employee said, "and they probably think logically like, 'Who am I to walk away from this job that guarantees that my kids will never have student debt?'"
Some employees say RSUs can be 'golden handcuffs' now that chipmakers have hit it big
The stock growth of chipmakers Broadcom, Nvidia, and AMD since January 2023 has outpaced that of other tech giants, such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.
"Aside from Meta, even the 'poorest' performing AI chip company (AMD) has outpaced the rest of Big Tech in these past two years," said Hakeem Shibly, a data analyst at Levels.fyi.
One Broadcom employee, who estimated that their restricted stock units, or RSUs, are valued at over six times their salary, said, "Given the recent rise of the share price, people who have been able to hold on to their shares will now be looking forward to a very comfortable retirement."
In one case, an equity package of $488,000 given to an Nvidia employee in 2023 is now worth more than $2.2 million, according to Levels data. Even a more modest $66,000 RSU package reported by a Broadcom employee in 2023 has jumped in value to around $265,000.
Business Insider spoke to a former Broadcom employee who said they lost unvested RSUs when they were let go from the company last year. They estimate their vested RSUs are now worth half a million dollars, but if they were still at Broadcom, their total RSU package would now be worth about $3 million.
In some of the user-submitted data provided by Levels.fyi, the value of several Nvidia employees' equity grants has risen over 350% since their hire date in 2023, but because they're not fully vested, they would risk walking away from more than $500,000.
Likewise, at Broadcom, the grants of several employees have increased by over 300% since 2023, with many holding RSU packages worth millions, according to Levels data. Two Broadcom employees said theirs were worth over $6 million each.
One Nvidia employee said RSUs have created a "lottery winner syndrome," meaning that it feels unlikely to find a similarly lucrative opportunity elsewhere.
"The golden handcuffs are RSUs," the former Broadcom employee said. "No one's going to put in their notice now to go to other opportunities."
Vesting strategies attract and keep talent with the promise of millions of dollars
Leaders inside the chip giants are well aware of how powerful these packages are for retaining talent.
Nvidia said that "RSUs promote retention" in its annual sustainability report and said its turnover rate has more than halved, from 5.3% in 2023 to 2.5% in 2025. CEO Jensen Huang has boasted about making employees wealthy, and the company said that 20% of employees have been there for 10 years, while 40% have been there for more than five years.
Likewise, Broadcom reported that its global voluntary attrition rate last year was 6.2%, which is "below the technology industry benchmark." It cited equity awards as a "powerful long-term retention incentive," saying it has "historically granted these awards to the substantial majority of our employees."
The Nvidia employees said that since the RSUs of longer-time employees are worth more than those of newer employees, the disparities are sometimes openly discussed. One employee said some managers who have been with the company for a long time — and whose shares are worth exponentially more — "are just resting and vesting." The other employee said that those whose RSUs are worth more could be more incentivized to go above and beyond, including working more intensely or being less likely to push back in meetings.
According to Levels data, Nvidia has started using a method used by Google, Uber, DoorDash, and Pinterest in recent years, which is to "front-load" its vesting schedules. This means employees receive the biggest chunk of their equity in their first year at the company. Similar to a signing bonus, front-loading can be a valuable tool for attracting top talent.
It also ties financial rewards more closely to employee performance, as tech employees often receive additional stock awards after their first year of work. After that, if an employee's performance is poor, they're more likely to see diminished payouts.
Smaller pay packages handed out at these AI hardware companies have also become incredibly lucrative. Employees may get more equity in lieu of a higher salary or bonuses — and for some of those working at the chip giants right now, that's OK.
"In private conversations I've had with others," another former Broadcom employee said, "they're quite pleased with RSUs."
