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Comment by the_watcher | Hacker News Reader

Ask to forward exercise when joining. From what I understand, there isn't a negative impact on the employer, you are just being granted RSU's that they have an option to buy back for $0 before your cliff, and then convert to ISO's at your cliff. You can file that 83b election immediately, which will substantially drop your tax burden.

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Yep, we offered this to all of our employees at Hired after our seed round, but before our $15m Series-A. The majority took the early exercise option once they understood it.

It's a massive lift for our team (based on tax savings) when an eventual liquidity event occurs, with no downside for the company other than additional paperwork and some legal costs.

right right, but I have to (1) come up with $50k in cash (in my example), and (2) if the job isn't working out, I want the fraction of my initial payment back upon leaving and it isn't clear this happens...

Early exercise makes the most sense for seed stage companies where the exercise price is still low... at companies where you have to spend $50K or more to exercise, I've seen loans being handed out by the company to its executives to make it possible for them to take advantage of it.

Any insight into why a company wouldn't allow forward exercising? The legal/finance team at my company refused to do it, though I wasn't given an explanation why.

* It's extra hassle/paperwork.

* Employees have less incentive to stay because they won't run into the AMT "handcuff" situation (where if they leave they have to exercise their options or lose them, and they can't afford to pay the taxes to exercise the options).

* More employees will actually exercise their options before liquidity, which means more minority shareholders.

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