Getting a 409A did seem to be pretty dumb. It's just a super-expensive process to figure out how much taxes you have to pay on option grants. If the rules were

Getting a 409A did seem to be pretty dumb. It's just a super-expensive process to figure out how much taxes you have to pay on option grants. If the rules were just, a grant of startup stock doesn't get taxed until an IPO or acquisition, so you don't have to do options in the first place, that would be much saner!