Yeah it actually makes a difference now. You still have to watch out for the California AMT (which I didn't know about) - it's 7% and will still trigger at the

Yeah it actually makes a difference now. You still have to watch out for the California AMT (which I didn't know about) - it's 7% and will still trigger at the lower value. As a bonus you can no longer deduct it either past 10k from federal taxes (though that may change with the charity thing). The ability to do early exercise on unvested shares is also often not an option at startups so when you are able to exercise the spread is higher and the tax penalty is worse.