A number of startups screw over their employees with options. 90 days is a terribly short exercise window. Kinda like a scam in a way.
But not all startups are like that. Where I work (Mixpanel), that window is 5 years. Which I feel is a much generous and fair offer.
With stock options, I pay no tax. If the company liquidates, then I convert the options to real stock (yeah i’ll have to pay money to do that). If things go better, I hold that stock for one year and when I sell, I pay capital gains tax at a much lower rate on the gains.
But. Big BUT, there’s a lot of assumptions. Things may not go well, may it doesn’t get valued as much, may be it takes longer than 5 years. Lots of may be’s. That’s part of the startup gamble.
We are hiring btw if anyone is interested in analytics space. DM me.
But you have NSOs though, not ISOs right? From what I understand, ISOs are required by law to have a 90 day exercise window, so companies that offer more than 90 days after leaving a company are having ISOs converted to NSOs. When you exercise the NSOs, you still will have a tax bill.
But not all startups are like that. Where I work (Mixpanel), that window is 5 years. Which I feel is a much generous and fair offer.
With stock options, I pay no tax. If the company liquidates, then I convert the options to real stock (yeah i’ll have to pay money to do that). If things go better, I hold that stock for one year and when I sell, I pay capital gains tax at a much lower rate on the gains.
But. Big BUT, there’s a lot of assumptions. Things may not go well, may it doesn’t get valued as much, may be it takes longer than 5 years. Lots of may be’s. That’s part of the startup gamble.
We are hiring btw if anyone is interested in analytics space. DM me.