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It's from 2007; if someone showed you this today, as what you needed to know as a hire, they'd be scamming you. This seems like only the "first slide's" worth
by neilv 1y ago
It's from 2007; if someone showed you this today, as what you needed to know as a hire, they'd be scamming you.
This seems like only the "first slide's" worth of what a tech employee needs to know about stock options, and not the most important things.
It's also worded imperfectly in parts, with the effect of being misleading.
If you start by looking at the lede and first paragraph, it's unclear who this is for, and seems more like a child's "book report", with no regard for the reader, nor sufficient understanding of the space that's relevant to the reader.
Perhaps this wasn't garbage in 2007, but I'm flagging it in 2025.
- wiseowise 1y agoWhat would you suggest in 2025?
- daveguy 1y agoAlways consider stock options to be worthless.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- lurking_swe 1y agoThat’s too broad of a statement. For a startup, YES, i agree. It may end up at $0 if the company goes bust. And that’s very common - especially in tech. However there are some publicly traded (and fairly large) companies that have been around for a while, that also offer stock options (NQSOs) to their employees. Typically they get to choose between RSUs, NQSOs, or a mix. In these cases options are not worthless because the risk of the company going bankrupt is very slim.
- daveguy 1y agoYeah, I was going to go into all that crap, but they're all still just options to buy at whatever market price you start at. Market go up. Market go down. Just consider stock options to be worthless when negotiating. I'm not saying don't accept them, just don't factor them in as "compensation". Factor them in as chips already laid on roulette table, at best.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- neilv 1y ago[dead]
- yohannparis 1y agoWhere can I find up to date information on a stock-option?
- xandrius 1y ago2 rules of joining a startup: 1. If you can get assured bonuses instead of stock options, pick that unless it's going to be a unicorn. 2. It's not going to be a unicorn.
- anotherhue 1y agoCouldn't agree more. The tech boom made a lot of people rich, you might call that egalitarian, and believe that you too could share in the wealth. The financial class call that uncaptured value, and they have since altered the terms to prevent that. Naturally the company still wants to pretend otherwise so when you hear the TC you add USD to timebomb banana bucks and come out with a USD total. If you want equity start your own business. You are not in a position to get any of theirs. Edit: if you get RSUs and you can liquidate without lockup then that's much better. But still worse than cash.