Offering equity when looking to hire a senior leader/CEO

I speak with owners of small and mid-size businesses often who are looking to hire a senior leader, like a CEO. We are an exec search firm that places high-performing military veterans into leadership roles at SMBs. And they want to offer equity. Here's what I say: Don't. Two reasons why, and then what to do instead: 1. Odds are, you don't know this person as well as you think. That's not to encourage distrust, but just being real. When entering into an equity agreement, you are entering into a relationship that is easy to enter and much harder to exit. So, give out equity cautiously. 2. By granting equity upfront, you may be limiting options down the road. Let's say you hire someone and they do really well. After a few years, they might be looking ready to leave, but you don't want them to. If you have already given them equity, your options are: 1. They leave with that equity 2. You offer them more If you DID NOT offer equity at the start, you now have that option to entice them to stay. So you reserved that option for only your best performers. So, what to do instead? Offer a transparent bonus package that is tied to performance and, for really key hires, offer phantom stock at the start. Much of the same upside without the complications.