
I chose Facebook over Uber on 1/18/2019, which grossed me $92k. - huntermonk
http://huntermonk.com/2019/11/06/one-decision-92k.html
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bashwizard
Imagine working for Facebook in 2019 without feeling bad about it.

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Traster
I think most people should understand by now, these massive option grants are
basically playing roulette with a huge chunk of your remuneration package.
It's meant to align your interests with the company but let's face it - no one
starting at facebook today will have any meaningful impact on the share price
as an individual. Instead it's a great way of companies making their employees
take significant risk.

When I graduated I could have worked at 3 generally similar companies, the
lowest salary offer was £27k, the highest was £35k, all had significant RSU
packages (nothing like crazy US numbers). In the 5 years following my
graduation, 1 company got bought by Intel providing a 50% pop for the share
price, 1 company got bought by Softbank providing a 50% pop for the share
price, 1 got eviscerated by Apple and practically destroyed the share price.
There was no meaningful way of knowing which way any of those would go. As a
graduate I had no real chance of impacting the shareprice of those events. Yet
for some reason between 0-30% of my renumeration was determined by it!

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fakegermano
the story of how one person accepts the offer that pays more in equity, salary
and bonus, and make more money than the other. such an economic genius

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johnwheeler
right. what was the moral lesson of this story? that I should flip coins for
profit or that the FAANGs are prone to hiring millennials who don't share the
same shame as my generation in discussing their financials so openly?

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huntermonk
No moral lesson here - I suppose my point is that you rarely get to have such
a clear-cut comparison of what would've happened if you took the other path at
the fork in the road.

I can see where it comes off as gloating, though. Do you think I should modify
this to focus more on the fork aspect? (genuine question)

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johnwheeler
it's hard to make a story about you making money compelling unless you have
something to share that can help others get there too. there's not too much of
that here (and i'm not sure there could be in this case)

~~~
huntermonk
That's a good point - I added a small conclusion which possibly helps.

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cityzen
This feels like a weird, socially awkward humblebrag

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windexh8er
The reality was it wasn't even a coin flip. They based things on pie in the
sky estimates - treating them as factual evidence. If you're going to believe
a recruiter on futures of stock options (not even RSUs) you're mad. Beyond
that Facebook, at the time of consideration, was still a massive behemoth
financially compared to Uber who had yet to publicly show an earnings report.
I wrote this up right before Uber went public, but it was clear this stock was
going to sink vs swim. They have nothing but debt, very little R&D that has
long term viability any of the FAANGs couldn't just buy up as collateral, and
have been throwing darts at how to monetize into the black since becoming
commonplace. Had Uber had a few shreds of conservative approach to what
they're doing I'd be far more behind them. But I was out at one of their
research facilities on the east coast a couple of years ago and I couldn't
believe the sheer amount of unknown and money (they didn't have) being dumped
into autonomous at the time. Fast forward _years_ and they still have no
operational product. They're not Apple or Google with wads of cash to burn.
The goal with going IPO was to accelerate the end product that makes them
profitable, which they have yet to deliver.

Personally I don't think there was any choice that would have made sense other
than Facebook to net you the most guaranteed cash. Cambridge was never going
to sink FB, at least not in any timeframe that would have impacted your
vesting schedule. You got in at the perfect time. Timing is everything, and
the takeaway is make decisions on the known, not a recruiter floating numbers
they don't remotely understand and are incented to make sound amazing.

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trilinearnz
Nice, thanks for sharing. It wasn't clear to me whether you cashed in your
options. Is there still the chance you could lose that gain if the stock went
down?

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huntermonk
No problem! I appreciate your support.

I've sold my stock as soon as it's vested. I'm already overexposed to
Facebook.

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rak00n
He actually didn't gross $92k. That's not only unrealized stock options, it
also assumes he'd stay in Facebook for next 3 years. He actually grossed 1/4th
of that, given he stays in Facebook till end of first year.

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huntermonk
Facebook vests quarterly - there actually isn't a one year cliff. In the last
picture, salary + signing bonus + (4 * Quarterly RSU) + expected year end
bonus gives you the total pay for the first year.

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rak00n
I stand corrected. Thanks for explaining.

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huntermonk
No problem!

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gnu8
I wonder how much he spends on housing.

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huntermonk
From February until October 5th, I lived at
[NEMA]([https://www.rentnema.com/](https://www.rentnema.com/)) downtown in SF.
I was in a 450 sqft. apartment, and it was $3270/month. I absolutely hated it.
NEMA was fine, but SF is not for me.

On October 5th, I just moved down to Menlo Park next to FB. I'm in a 3BR 1BA
which is $1850/month. It's much better here.

~~~
gnu8
Still not great. It hardly makes sense to pull $300k/yr just to pay it all out
to a landlord.

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heyoni
At $300k/year, your weekly paycheck is roughly $3300 after withholdings...I’d
hardly say that all your cash is going to your landlord.

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windexh8er
They're not getting paid $300k a year. They're getting paid $160k a year and
the delta is made up in RSU. I'm not sure how FB transacts on stocks for you
but depending how they deal with the taxes involved OP could be off by a large
factor in the net calculation. Also not sure how FB vests stock, but if it's
traditional OP still hasn't vested anything (1 year cliff).

~~~
huntermonk
It's not traditional actually. We vest quarterly, and I've sold my stock as
soon as I've received it (two vest days so far). My third vesting is November
15th.

The last picture gives you my estimated total comp for the year, $343k. It
will be something close to that unless $FB has a major change between now and
next vesting date in February 2020.

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sleepytimetea
Are those equity numbers annualized or for the entire 4 year vesting period ?

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huntermonk
Those are for four years - I'll edit the text to explain that.

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ncmncm
tl;dr I lucked into cash while doing the bidding of one of the US's top ten
evil oligarchs.

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andrewmcwatters
What is your savings rate?

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huntermonk
I just checked Wealthfront and it says my rate is 44%. I'm working on
increasing it to ~60%.

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MatthewWilkes
Obscene.

