I'm fairly new to investing, but from what I understand, these...

I'm fairly new to investing, but from what I understand, these performance shares are newly created shares. They are escrowed for two years, which means they can't be sold for two years after they are created (a good thing). If the performance goals are met, the CEO will be getting about 30 million dollars of shares at today's price. That seems very excessive to me, but maybe it is normal for start-ups which are starting to hit performance milestones. Too late to grumble though.