How about "Company folded; options worthless and owe $4000 in taxes" This was during the last Tech Bubble.
"But... the movie The Social Network told me and showed me that..." -The thoughts of too many HN folks
Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
41–50 of 191 posts
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#42"None - my stock option vanished and don't own any". What does this mean? How stock options vanish?
If options are "underwater" at the time of acquisition, it can be part of the deal that acquiring company does not need to honor those, and they are basically deleted. That happened to me, when options at a public company were acquired by another public company. All the vested but underwater options were simply deleted. When share price rose at the acquiring company my options would have been worth $600,000+. Oh well…
How can the deletion be legal? Isn't the purchasing company required to honor all debts of the purchasee?
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Max, are you trolling here? This kinda smells like trolling, because I don't think you'd be the type to generalize across all startups like this.
It's my opinion. Working at a startup, you're underpaid and overworked for very little financial benefit.
Ill second that - skip the startups and work for yourself instead if at all possible
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is that legal?
Well, how much do you think shares in a bankrupt company should be worth? If there's not enough money to go around, someone is going to get left with the short stick.
I think his point wasn't that someone getting the short stick was illegal, but rather that shares were bought from me without my direct consent.
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#45Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#46So, who are the lucky few to have earned more than 11M :)
Probably venture capitalists trying to sway the poll to sell the startup dream
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#47You'd have to be pretty dumb to be an employee at a startup because of the money: bad hours, lots of risk, bad pay and lots of personal confrontation.
Max, are you trolling here? This kinda smells like trolling, because I don't think you'd be the type to generalize across all startups like this.
Why would he be trolling? Sounds like the general truth to me. I'd accuse him of trolling if he said the opposite
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#48Are the ones, towards the end of this list, Google employees?
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#49You'd have to be pretty dumb to be an employee at a startup because of the money: bad hours, lots of risk, bad pay and lots of personal confrontation.
Max, are you trolling here? This kinda smells like trolling, because I don't think you'd be the type to generalize across all startups like this.
Max is right. As an employee, Startups do beat the shit out of you and if the startup shuts down after a year, you gotta begin all over again from where you started a year back.
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#50I believe that the exact amount was $112 (net). Unbeknownst to most, our executives screwed everyone over and issued preferred stock to a major investment bank. I, and many others, had thousands of options, but the share price for common shares was too low for most grants to be worth anything. The executives all received bonuses for the sale from the investment bank.
Similar situation, though I must say that the CTO felt guilty and gave me an ipod. Then felt even more guilty and arranged for the company to give me $5000 and let me keep the ipod. This was, I must add, when ipods were expensive novelties.