Hacker News Reader

Your calculation assumes that the other 60% of the time you get to keep your original investment, but there's a good chance that you lose it all.

This is also the calculation for an investor, and is not really relevant for an employee option holder.

In fact, it sounds like the 40% includes all exits, including those that returned only 1x. That would mean that the 60% is all 0s, and that the chart shows a negative total return in all rows, without even discounting for the holding period.

But the way it works per individual is that you have a 40% chance of "winning" and a 60% chance of losing your investment completely.

VTI carries the risk that your investment could lose value in the short term, but over a longer time period, I'll take VTI over stock options any day.

Better odds and no work at a game of chance. That's pretty damning.

This math is way off. _Guaranteed_ doubling in 4 years is a 19% per annum return. If the "not doubling" case is "break even" (generous) then the expected growth is under 10% per annum.

This really depends on an individuals risk tolerance.

Volatility adjusted is probably quite shit.