A third of those are based Microsoft's Total Shareholder Return relative to the S&P 500 over three overlapping five-year performance periods. Vesting is also based on shareholder return with the number shares vesting at the end of each period ranging from 150,000 to 900,000. At $38 per share, toward the middle of this week's stock prices, that ranges from $5.7 million to $34.2 million, He can get $50,000 in reimbursement for costs involved in negotiating the terms of employment. Looking at the terms of the long-term awards, I'd say it's worth the money to understand those and given the size of Microsoft? Compared to agreements I've seen at smaller companies this is relatively modest.