Uhh company law was never my best subject but let me try.

Big4 are structured as Limited Liability Partnership instead of Companies.

So instead of shareholders, they have Partners.

Equity partners aren’t just employees, they literally own a share of the business. Except instead of “shares” like companies, it’s structured like a stake which is determined by their partner ship agreement. So the senior partners would likely have a larger stake. And you can’t freely buy/sell this stake like shares - its all based on the agreement with the partnership.

They draw a monthly salary, but beyond that they get PROFIT SHARING which is the big bucks. It ties in directly with the firms performance and their contributions.

The range between junior and senior partner is huge - you can Google “big 4 partner salary” to get a rough idea.