World Conflicts
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Peaceful Protest Hasn’t Worked and Has Been Met With Aggression.
Tech Industry
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Amazon L6 vs Meta E6
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Do people underestimate E6 role at meta?
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White male privilege is real
1) This is about options, not RSUs. 2) This isn't about why settle for options, because I understand that's the only way early stage startups can survive. Now to the actual question, given the fact that you need to invest your post-taxed money (so that's what 30-35% overhead to the actual amount you pay to buy the options) to buy options that were given as part of your compensation, not only is it Paper money (until it becomes worth something) isn't it a negative component to TC? If a startup went bust and didn't give you an opportunity to sell options for RSUs, you would lost money, so it's not zero worth, it's a loss. I understand only a small % of start-ups end up breaking even, and a smaller % making bank, and extremely small % becoming fortune changers. Given all of these, what's the rationale behind 1) Asking for more options as part of your compensation negotiation, as opposed to higher base pay 2) Adding those options to your TC value (other than inflating ego & self-worth)
Option is like lottery. But option is the only reason working in an early stage company. If you don't like this lottery, GTFO. Because it doesn't make sense at all to work there.
Options are always worth something. They are just hard to value if they are issued at fair market value in an early stage company. Once a company gets a big valuation step up they are clearly worth something though. You can at least do a floor on value to approximate - FMV minus strike price. Ignoring issues like liquidity discount and gap between common share value vs. preferred value. You can also correct for those if you want to be a bit more accurate.
You can hold onto the options until they expire. As far as computing TC options hold value if they can be sold, so if they can't or never can be sold they're worthless. It's really more about how big of a payout you want to create if you think the company is going to IPO or buyback shares. You also have to consider the option of acquisition as another opportunity to cash out.
My options expire after 10y or 3m after I quit