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Comment by zepto | Hacker News Reader

> Nowadays, stock options given to employees often end up being worth nothing, even on a successful exit.

This seems unlikely.

Exits and IPOs have much greater valuations now than they did ‘back in the day’ so far more early employees end up with a significant infusion of cash.

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Companies are also taking FAR longer to exit/IPO than they did back in the day and most companies still have a 90 day limit on ISOs.

How many super early employees are able to hang on for a decade until IPO, or have the cash to exercise their options before they leave?

Super-early employee here. Pay for your options your first day of employment. They should be inexpensive; and your employer should be willing to give you a signing bonus to cover it (after all, the money just goes right back to them). Then when you leave, you get to keep all vested shares with no tax consequence, no need to pony up any cash, and no need to sell right away. Worked out great for me.

This is the way for companies to do right by the first few employees (and have a longer than 90 exercise window when leaving). I know a super early employee who left and had to take a loan to exercise and pay taxes. It's kind of sad to think about it.

I currently have a six figure tax bill because of exactly this issue. And I can’t sell the shares to anyone because transfer is forbidden.

> And I can’t sell the shares to anyone because transfer is forbidden.

IMO this should be illegal. It's your property and they should not be allowed to bar it's sale.

Shares aren’t really ‘property’. They are a financial / legal instrument created by statutes and contracts.

How does this work when they haven't vested yet?

It's called election 83(b). For it to work, the company grants you restricted stock instead of options. The restriction is that the company can buy back the stock on a vesting schedule, so it's effectively equivalent to stock-options. The difference is that you can buy all of them on day 1 at fair market value and pay no tax.

It's usually done for early employees who join before multiple rounds of funding occur.

If your company allows for it, you can early exercise and file a 83(b) election so that even as your options vest over time, you only pay taxes for the spread between your strike price and the fair market value at the date of the early exercise, rather than the date of vesting. The taxes can be 0 if you early exercise when the fair market value _is_ the same as your strike price.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/earlyexercise.asp

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/1/83b-election.asp

> They should be inexpensive; and your employer should be willing to give you a signing bonus to cover it (after all, the money just goes right back to them).

The first part of this can be false. If you're 1/2 way to billions IPO then your options can easily be a year or more of salary to exercise.

About the second part if the company gives you that as a signing bonus you're still on the hook to the IRS for the bonus so now you're 10s of 10000s deep on an illiquid position.

If the company is half way to a big IPO, then any new hire is no longer "super early," and the advice doesn't pertain.

>Super-early employee here.

The advice giver is super-early, not the target of said advice.

But I agree that the advice is best suited for super-early people.

The target of the advice specifically asked about the super-early case: "How many super early employees are..."

Lots of places have cliffs now, how does that strategy account for not being allowed to buy them because you haven’t worked there long enough?

You pay ahead, and if you don't make the cliff, or if you leave after the 1 year cliff but before the full 4 year vest, you get the shares you vested, and a refund of the cash that didn't end up buying the rest.

You need to consider that a very, very small percentage of companies have IPOs.

Many "successful" exits are actually acqui-hires, where a larger company acquires a dead or dying company for its talent. Often the product from that company is immediately shutdown, or at least shelved and no longer actively developed.

Other "successful" exits pay some percentage back to the recent preferred shareholders. Earlier investors are not made whole. Common shareholders generally get nothing.

Founders will still spin these "exits" a positive because they didn't have to shut down. The reality is the venture was a failure. Employees got jobs... that they could've had anyway.

Sure - I’m just suggesting that it wasn’t better in some mythical past.

In my 30 year career, I have never had a stock option worth a single penny. When I have someone talk up options as part of a compensation package, I tell them that options are nice, but my experience is that they have had no value in my past and that's the value that I'll assign them in the present and the future.

I’m with you on this. I just don’t think it was better in the past.

far more early employees end up with a significant infusion of cash

One word: dilution

Dilution is not new.

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