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Comment by VintageLight | Hacker News Reader

Carta (from the article) posted the benefits for employees who got laid off. They're pretty amazing relative to others. https://medium.com/@henrysward/cartas-covid-19-layoff-cbb80e...

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Having been through several rounds of layoffs, Henry's letter/statement seems incredibly humane and thoughtful given the circumstances.

3 months severance is California law and part of the CA-Warn act. Nice they covered cobra till the end of the year.

I didn't know this existed. However it seems California’s Governor, Gavin Newsom, has issued an Executive Order to suspend the state’s WARN Act until the end of the COVID-19 emergency.

The WARN Act is not severance! It requires that the company notify employees 60 days in advance of a mass layoff. They don't have to specifically notify the individuals being laid off.

There is no requirement for severance in California!

Most companies forgo notification and pay out two months of pay. So it becomes a defacto severance. Do you know any company that actually gave notice and kept the employees on for two months?

I didn't see anything about stock options in the announcement. Is it in there and I missed it?

> Third, if you have been with us for less than one year, we have removed your cliff and extended your PTE to 1 year from today. You joined Carta to create owners and to become one. Everyone affected today will be an owner of Carta.

PTE = Post-termination Exercise

I saw that, but what does that mean for an employee who has been there for 3 years and has a significant amount of equity vested? Do they have to buy it immediately? If so, they might as well not even bother since cash is going to be king for those employees and risking cash + tax liability is probably far from ideal.

Carta's policy is that your PTE period is the length of your tenure. So those employees with > 3 years have > 3 years to exercise.

That is a solid policy. Very fair.

If they are non-qual options, why not make them 10 years like other companies. Why the short expiration? I'd rather have ISOs and the chance to cut my tax burden in half. More importantly not having to pay taxes upfront to exercise the options. Doesn't seem employee friendly.

They are ISOs. The standard PTE for most companies is 90 days.

Because 90 days is the IRS rule for options to qualify as ISOs.

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