Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zach's advocacy of GitHub was one of the reasons I became such a fan over the years. Ever since they fired him, things haven't quite felt the same... I don't know the exact circumstances around his departure, but I do know that GitHub lost someone who, for me, had become one of the leading faces of the company. Of course, maybe that's exactly why the let him go. Regardless, I'm looking forward to seeing him do the sa…
He discussed the firing here: https://zachholman.com/talk/firing-people
I had been talking to various officials in leadership for a few months
hammering out the details and had been under the impression that we had
reached an agreement, but I was surprised to find out that wasn’t the case.
I was informed 28 hours before my 90 day window closed that the agreement I
had thought I had didn’t exist; it was then that I realized I had 28 hours
to either come up with hundreds of thousands of dollars that I didn’t have
to save half of my stock, or I could sign the agreement as-is and avoid
losing half of my already-diminished stake. I opted to sign.
[...]
But I still haven’t found the next thing I’m really interested in, which
just feeds into the whole cycle some more. For better or worse, that’ll be
changing pretty quickly, since I’m pretty broke after working part-time and
living in San Francisco for so long. Even though I helped move a company’s
valuation almost two billion dollars, I haven’t made a dime from the company
outside of making a pretty below-to-average salary. That’s after six years.
Think on that, kids, when you’re busting your ass day and night to strike it
rich with your startup dreams.
Those options are worth a lot less than you think they are. One of the wonders of cash is it's very hard for companies to retroactively steal it back.
If you're going to a company that gives options, demand either an 83b or iso to nso flip / 10 year exercise window.