> Does anyone have a market theory justification that makes them comfortable with the idea?

A large component of senior employees' salary at tech companies tends to be stock awards, which requires somebody to buy up the "free" stock to be usable as cash. If the company itself is doing this, then it amounts to a really roundabout way of paying employees. I'm still not comfortable with this idea, but it did change my attitude from "this is an outrageous practice" to "our tax laws are fucking broken."