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> Upon leaving the company, they would have 90 days to exercise options. If they'd been there for a couple years during the fast growth phase, it's possible the
by chimeracoder 9y ago
> Upon leaving the company, they would have 90 days to exercise options. If they'd been there for a couple years during the fast growth phase, it's possible they had (e.g.) $500k in options with a strike price at $10k. Uber prohibited secondary market sales, so if you exercised your options, you had to hold on to them until IPO. However, you;d have to pay taxes on the gains on those vested options despite being unable to sell them
Unfortunately, this applies to every successful startup that issues options (instead of RSUs). It's not just Uber.
- mmanfrin 9y agoThe difference is that in most situations you can sell vested options on a secondary market, Uber made it a contractual requirement on vesting that they could not be sold on any secondary market (they could only be sold back to Uber for the strike price).
- chimeracoder 9y ago> The difference is that in most situations you can sell vested options on a secondary market, Uber made it a contractual requirement on vesting that they could not be sold on any secondary market (they could only be sold back to Uber for the strike price). After Facebook learned this lesson the "hard" way[0], that's actually pretty standard. Every startup started within the last 5+ years has this same provision in their options, if you read the fine print, and older companies all amended their option terms for new grants. [0] hard way for Facebook, not for the employees.