Most tech workers do not get compensated with stock. A fraction of the best compensated get stock. The next tier down get options with so many caveats that they are effectively worthless, and the tier below them are straight salary with no equity even entering the horizon for them.
And yea, once you start getting actual capital and start reaping the benefits of that wealth you start being identified as a capitalist in the socialist world view.
Edit: the comment I replied to originally had this sentence at the end
> Very typical for a certain type of folk. It's also utterly deranged even when you just consider that most tech workers get compensated with stock.
Eh? Which tech company doesn't give RSUs to fresh grads? Startups of course give options.
And how many american middle class+ (generalizing beyond tech workers) don't own equity?
Our corporation gives us worthless certificates for "money", that only pay out conditionally based on if the company gets re-evaluated for worth.
Our 401K match maxes out at $50 per paycheck.
You are in a bubble if you are surprised at the idea of companies not giving out stock, much less RSUs specifically. While it’s common in the big tech Silicon Valley companies there are thousands of other tech companies where the most they give are options, and I must repeat with a litany of caveats that make them effectively worthless, and even more where they only pay salary and have no way to gain equity at all.
I am in a lower tier of the market than Silicon Valley and after 15 years of making over six figure salary I have not been given a single stock, and none of my employees or members of my social circles that don’t work at FAANGs have either.