> Is there any non-exploitative way to interpret this? The only thing worse than wasting my time on features for promo rather than users is working overtime to make more money for those with significant equity/ownership in ways that will never seriously affect my comp. Without promo or "promo by a different name" i.e. money, how do you incentivize people? How do you decide who to allocate your finite equity and money to?

Easy, there is no promo, you just pay everyone 450k like Netflix and raise everyone's pay each year to stay at the top of the market.