It has worked, perhaps not for long, but outweighted sums of cash to play with a nice side project or work on an actual "at scale" thing whilst you vest some shares probably appeals to a lot more smart people than we might imagine.
Salaries are also deductible, so they get the talent in their pool, off the market, adding a small % of value, whilst also being able to offset taxes on record profits.
It's a pretty nice win-win for them.