] Some companies plan to cut back on compensation
] altogether.
]
] Dell said last year that it would decrease stock options
] and instead use cash as an incentive. But founder Michael
] Dell also said then that the personal computer maker did
] not need to replace options altogether because of the
] changing competitiveness of the job market.
]
] Stock options are less important given the weakness in
] the job market and the shift away from options, said John
] Rutledge, portfolio manager of the Evergreen Technology
] Fund.
]
] "Even as the job market does pick up a little bit,
] recognize that all companies are in the same boat and
] cutting back the amount of options that they are
] issuing," Rutledge said.
]
] "Technology is maturing as an industry. Its growth rate
] is not going to be what it has been in the past -- all
] the more reason for companies to adjust and adapt to the
] new world," he said.

This touches a lot of threads.

The people who advocate expensing options talk on about executive compensation, but they do not have an answer for how this effects regular employees at innovative companies and what to do about it. They just don't have an answer for that, and they steer way around the subject when they write about this. They seem to be completely ignorant of this as a factor.

"Technology is maturing as an industry" means we're not doing innovative work in this space anymore. Its not as if there isn't innovative work left to do. Its just that we're not doing it.

From the perspective of potential engineering students this is another nail in the coffin. Not only are we exporting your job to India, but we're not doing anything exciting and there is no opportunity here for wealth creation. The wealth that we do create here will only be shared with top executives. This cuts across all fields. This will damper the nano and bio tech fields just as much.

The best and brightest should be running at full speed at this point. The question is into what?

America already has a tremendous cultural bias against math/science. We already stimatize those fields as anti-social, prefering instead more political professions that involve less hard work and hard thinking, and where the winners are the one who are best at manipulating people, usually in a dishonest way.

The only exception is the medical profession. People need doctors even when they are young, so they are harder to stigmatize. You don't talk to the people who design your car.

The reality is that technological leadership has been the bedrock of American success for the entire post-war era. We're now engaged in the social process of cutting that down as fast as possible. We're eliminating and everything that generates hope and ambition in the technology field, often in ignorance. We're cutting away at our own muscle. We're gunna bleed for it.

"Someone is writing down your mistakes..."

Forbes.com: US tech companies look to ways to replace options