The New 10-Year Vesting Schedule

zachholman.com

35 points·hodgesmr··7 comments

These days, I haven't seen a good reason to take stock options at all.

Startups rarely succeed. Stock options are an excuse to pay you less. Startups rarely IPO. You only really make money in an IPO.

Indie cred? I mean, you're not cool on HN unless you're making undermarket at a startup for a number of years.

Being cool is nice, making rent is nicer.

Sorry, that post was dripping with sarcasm

Get paid what you're worth and damn the funny money.

I agree with the sentiment though, this attitude from CEOs and billionaire VCs is disgusting.

I think it's starting to become companies' best interest to smarten up and offer a 10-year vesting schedule.

Employees are wisening up to the unfair and unfavourable conditions surrounding employee equity, thanks to blog posts like this. Companies offer equity to entice new employees, but if new employees see a 90-day exercise window as unfair, they'll start to ignore it. So either offer equity with a 10-year window, or don't bother offering equity, offer a better salary.

Did you read the article? The core thesis is that your vesting schedule on paper doesn't matter because the company will take 10+ years to go public anyway. That's what they mean by a 10 year vesting schedule.

The only discussion of an expanded exercise window is in mitigating the issue, as you could presumably leave after 4 years and then wait out the other 6+ elsewhere prior to exercising.

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