
Ask HN: Are stock options a good incentive for your work? - pachico
During the last 20 years I&#x27;ve seen many times companies giving shares&#x2F;stock options as incentive for your work. This because the company couldn&#x27;t&#x2F;wouldn&#x27;t pay in cash, as bonus or as an incentive to keep you working for the company.
The question is, would you accept it instead of cash?
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mindcrime
In almost every case, I'd say "no", I wouldn't accept stock instead of cash,
at least not at a one to one correspondence. The only case where I would,
would be if it were a stock grant of actual shares, not options, AND if there
was a real market for the shares (either the company is public, or there's an
active secondary market) AND the shares don't come with some weird clause
which pushes the date that they can be sold out so far that the price is
likely to vary a lot between now and then.

The chances of all three of those conditions being true at the same time is
approximately zero though.

Generally speaking, I treat stock options as worthless, especially if it's a
company where there is no market and no known price for the shares. It's easy
to wind up in a case where exercising your options would cost more than the
stock is worth, by the time you're able to exercise them.

A stock grant is worth _something_ , but those are much less common. And how
to value them is, again, dependent on "is there a market?", "are there
restrictions on when and how I can sell them?", etc.

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pachico
I understand you've been offered options at some point, right?

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mindcrime
A few times. I go in with the assumption that they're completely valueless,
and figure that if they ever amount to anything it's basically "found money."

So far, that position has been borne out. Promised options have either:

a. Never actually materialized

or

b. Were never worth enough to bother exercising

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lalo2302
The startup and VC culture has being the dominant model of a lot of companies.
The difference with solid businesses and burning-money machines is that one
gets funds to build, and the other builds to get funds.

The average lifespan of a startup is 3 years, so unless it's zoom and covid 2
comes in the next 3 years, your stocks won't be worth much.

I'd take the money.

Specially in an era like today with financial crisis and scandals, cash is
king.

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brutus1213
Counterpoint .. you will NEVER get rich on a salary. A 25% bump in salary
(e.g. via yearly cash bonus) vs. options ... with options, you can get rich.

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moistly
Buy lottery tickets, you can get rich. It’s the same thing, one just has
slightly better odds. Not good odds.

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chmaynard
It depends on the company. I went to work at Apple in 2001 and received a
large option grant. I made a lot of money when I exercised them in 2011, taxes
notwithstanding. If the company is a start-up, their options are probably
worthless and should never be an excuse for an artificially low salary.

~~~
pachico
Congratulations on your journey. I'm myself in a situation in which I'm being
offered tons of shares for a company that did ok pre Covid-19 but now is dead.
I'm inclined to decline.

