Sagging valuations at upstart tech companies have undoubtedly frustrated their venture capital backers in recent months. Employees who took company shares in lieu of big cash salaries may well be similarly peeved. The question is whether they will be more forgiving of the cracks now appearing in their nest eggs. Part of Silicon Valley’s mythology has been about the rank-and-file workers who hitch themselves to corporate rocket ships full of share options. Soaring equity value has been a key component of morale, retention and recruiting.

Simply based on price movements, the situation would now appear to be grim. Twitter is perhaps the most notorious example. Its shares are 7 per cent below their flotation price two years ago and virtually every crucial executive post at the social network has turned over since the listing. In an illustration of its reliance on equity, more than a quarter of direct and operating expenses ($526m) for the first nine months of 2015 at the company are attributable to stock compensation. Several other big-name tech companies are also down on their recent initial public offering prices. Among them are GoPro (30 per cent), Box (7 per cent), and Etsy (40 per cent). Even late-stage private companies Dropbox and Snapchat have suffered sharp markdowns by mutual funds that invest in them.

And employee shares typically do not come with the downside protection that venture capital investors are able to negotiate. As such, they are most penalised by falling valuations. But in spite of a job market that remains hot — one venture capitalist says headhunters are too busy to take his new staffing assignments — staff turnover may not be about to spike. Michael Morell, a founder of recruiting firm Riviera Partners in California, says: “There is no groundswell of turnover. Really, only a sliver of people are affected by falling valuations and those are employees who have joined in the last six months. Workers are still deeply in the money … Time horizons to big pay-offs, though, have been extended. But guys who are pissed off are still doing OK”.