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Dividends should be a sign that a company has excess cash and can't find a good place to invest it. Paying a dividend while asking workers to take a pay freeze signals they don't believe the workers are returning enough value to justify paying them more.

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What are stock buybacks, then? They're more employee hostile than dividends, that's for sure.

> They're more employee hostile than dividends, that's for sure

Why are buybacks more employee hostile than dividends?

Because I have to sell the shares and I get a bunch of cash. Dividends could happen yearly and for significant amounts, considering how cash rich these companies are.

For the whales, sure, they're great, since they do the whole "borrow against the share price and extend forever".

Buybacks are actually better for employees with unvested grants. If you have 100k in unvested stock and a dividend is issued, you get nothing. But an equivalent buyback raises the price and now you vest a higher amount.

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