Read your agreement again, carefully - maybe you got lucky and cashless exercise is available to you.
Ask HN: Company is firing all employees – should I still exercise my options?
41–50 of 94 posts
Re: Ask HN: Company is firing all employees – should I still exercise my options?
#42Re: Ask HN: Company is firing all employees – should I still exercise my options?
#43No one's mentioned this yet, but if you do exercise it may cost you more than $20 a share. In the US at least you need to pay taxes on the difference between the exercise price and the fair market value of each share. If FMV > $20, the difference is counted as income by the IRS.
Re: Ask HN: Company is firing all employees – should I still exercise my options?
#44> promising blockchain startup This can't be a serious post
Yeah. "Promising" and "Blockchain" won't work in one sentence in this context.
Re: Ask HN: Company is firing all employees – should I still exercise my options?
#45Personally I wouldn't touch it. We're going on 10 years of 'blockchain' being inappropriately applied to anything and everything and you can still count the winners on one hand. It's illegal to set money on fire... but that would probably have a better chance of paying off. This is not financial advice.
Re: Ask HN: Company is firing all employees – should I still exercise my options?
#46Just a bit of reading between the lines (from your previous postings ;-) ): Yeah... I wouldn't touch those shares with a ten foot pole while wearing a hazmat suit (the goggles, they do nothing!)
Unless I'm inter-line-reading incorrectly, the company raised $1m giving away 50% of the cap table. They ran out of money and pivoted. Loaded labour rate of about $150K initially I guess... Then raise money from an ICO -- must have been something around $3-4M given the 15 employees now. That money is gone. Originally 2 founders, now 3 (cap table is shrinking). I think there is no way at all that they will be able to raise money. Even if they sell the IP, it will be a fire sale.
This is not financial advice. I am not any kind of financial expert. I can't tell you what to do. I might be entirely wrong, but I don't see recovery at this stage, no matter what the business is.
Re: Ask HN: Company is firing all employees – should I still exercise my options?
#47How much is $13k to you, as a percentage of your net worth? If you believe in blockchain and want to make an extremely risky, but potentially high payoff, bet, I'd personally just split the 13k across BTC and ETH. Those can also go to zero, or grow another 10x+, but you are at least exposed to the entire industry, rather than a single startup. The investment would also be far more liquid, and you could sell at anytim…
This would be my advice as well. If you're determined to throw away $13,500 on some blockchain-themed boondoggle, this is a better drain down which to tip it.
Past performance is no automatic guide to the future, but speculating on Bitcoin has often turned out pretty well. Sounds like speculating on the company you used to work for, by contrast, will have reliably turned out poorly.
Re: Ask HN: Company is firing all employees – should I still exercise my options?
#48I don't know your financial situation. Maybe $13K isn't much to you. However, I probably wouldn't buy these shares for the following reasons: 1) The company just fired all of its employees 2) The company just fired all of its employees 3) The company just fired all of its employees That's a really bad sign. Even if they raise additional money, it likely won't be on good terms. With the price of bitcoin way down from…
Thanks for your answer! You hit the spot with some things. I am definitely emotionally involved with the company and considered the option of exercising only some of the options - that might be the best option at the moment. One thing to point out is that there is still a month worth of raising time (with all employees still in the company), which is significant in startup terms.
Re: Ask HN: Company is firing all employees – should I still exercise my options?
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am convinced most blockchain startups are solutions looking for problems. Yes, there are exceptions... Maybe this person is involved with one them?
There are exceptions or there could hypothetically be exceptions one day? I agree with the latter If the former, please provide examples. I am all ears
I was thinking more of the latter. I'd be interested in hearing more details on the company...
Re: Ask HN: Company is firing all employees – should I still exercise my options?
#50Just a bit of reading between the lines (from your previous postings ;-) ): Yeah... I wouldn't touch those shares with a ten foot pole while wearing a hazmat suit (the goggles, they do nothing!) Unless I'm inter-line-reading incorrectly, the company raised $1m giving away 50% of the cap table. They ran out of money and pivoted. Loaded labour rate of about $150K initially I guess... Then raise money from an ICO -- mus…
LOL. loved your comment! You hit the spot with your assessments and thanks for doing the research behind it. I think I should probably run best and worst case scenarios with the cap table alongside me. I agree that from the looks of it, it's pretty risky.