China's chip and AI firms are bonding whole payrolls in stock, and repricing every counteroffer

The per-head sums are large because the payrolls are not. Cambricon's earlier plan put 5 million shares in front of 944 people, 85.3% of the company ^[3], which implies a total headcount of about 1,107 ^[13]. Moore Threads added 1,080 staff, 85% of its people, in April ^[6], implying roughly 1,271 in all ^[14]. Work backwards from the smaller grant and Cambricon's stock was being valued at about 1,151 yuan a share on the day ^[12]; at that level the 5-million-share plan carries a value near 5.8 billion yuan, about 5.2 million yuan a head across the entire company ^[15]. For an employer of a thousand people, near-universal coverage is affordable in a way it never would be for an employer of a hundred thousand.

The money then widens sharply above the chip designers. Zhongji Innolight's 99 core recipients averaged gains of more than 26 million yuan each ^[4], roughly 2.6 billion yuan between them ^[18]. Zhipu's 426 pre-listing equity holders now average more than HK$100 million apiece ^[8]. The source's own won conversions imply about 207 won to the yuan and 177 won to the Hong Kong dollar ^[16], which puts the Zhipu average near 86 million yuan equivalent, some fifteen times Cambricon's core-staff grant ^[17]. A model researcher holding pre-IPO paper and a chip designer holding an RSU are being held in place by amounts an order of magnitude apart.

Where the shares come from is the second mechanism, and it is not uniform. Zhu Yiming has pledged 768 million shares, half his partnership stake in CXMT, over ten years, with himself explicitly excluded ^[7]: that pool comes out of a founder's holding rather than the float. The rest of the wave is financed by public shareholders while the market is up, which is what the filings are timed around, according to the South China Morning Post report relayed by en.sedaily.com ^[1]. Tencent's grant of more than 38.6 million shares equals 0.42% of the company ^[10]. Alibaba is moving the other way, lifting the share of long-term cash so pay is less exposed to the stock and lands sooner ^[11]. Both say they are trying to stop staff leaving for startups ^[19]. One of those two hedges will read badly within a year.

Coverage at 85% and above ^[3][6] is the part that travels. There is no thin stratum of stars to raid at these companies; the bonded population is the payroll. Anyone recruiting against them, in Hefei or in Hsinchu or in California, is no longer bidding against a salary band but against unvested paper struck at A-share and Hong Kong prices set during a rally.