Ought to have an option for people who lost money trading options.
Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?
31–40 of 72 posts
Re: Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?
#32I think the meta-meta question here is regarding the value of stock options vs immediate compensation (salary + benefits). So many CEOs treat options like they will definitely be of large worth to a person- but for the average employee they'll never see anything from them.
Yup. It's also really kinda entertaining how offended founders get when you ask for more money instead when you're employee #53 and they offer a number of options but refuse to disclose what % of the pool that is.
Re: Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?
#33Perhaps this is the wrong question, there are "how much money did you make on your options" and there is "How much money would you have made if you had sold them when they were worth the most?" You see I had some Sun stock left over from working there (about 8,000 shares) which at $60 a share in 1999 was $480,000, but after a reverse 3:1 split and selling them at $6 each in the Oracle merger they only netted me about…
I suspect your salary over the years netted you a heck of a lot more than your stock options. I did 3 years of contracting in London 15 years ago (after barely out of school), invested the money, and ended up with about $150k due to a favourable FX rate at the time.
These days it seems that every man and his dog is earning $150k+ if they're a half-decent developer in silicon valley, so I guess the stock options don't really matter. (I earn a lot less than that myself now, because I run my own mildly-profitable business).
It makes you wonder whether stock options are really just like throwing a dog a bone. The only people who really make any money are the investors and founders. At post-IPO places like facebook and google the stock bonus is really just an add-on to your salary. When I look up 'senior software engineer' salaries at google, you typically earn around $250k including stock bonus, so if you're looking for money I guess that's where you should be :)
Re: Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is an option for you. $0. You haven't made any money yet from options.
Yes, but there's a difference between your options being worth nothing and the value of your options being unknown. There's also a difference between the value of your options being unknown and the value of your options being known but you not being able to exercise them for whatever reason. You may not care about that distinction, but I'd be interested to know what camp those "$0 :(" people are in.
$0 :)
Re: Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?
#35$0, had them with 2 different companies, both became worthless.
Re: Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?
#36More than twelve users have sold stock options for more than $100M? Hello Larry, Sergey, Eric, and Tim! I would have suspected you were too busy to read HN.
If they've netted that much, that means they've sold. As such, there's a good chance they've retired, or at least only work on their own side projects now. Not everyone sells a company and then starts another one.
Also, rich people have access to the same internet. Is there an "interesting shit about programming but only for rich people site" that I don't know about?
Re: Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?
#37More than twelve users have sold stock options for more than $100M? Hello Larry, Sergey, Eric, and Tim! I would have suspected you were too busy to read HN.
I wonder if it is true, or if it is someone just clicking on it for shits and giggles. I've often wondered who exactly reads HN.
Re: Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?
#38I have a check for 1,000 shares, grand total $14.99 :) issued to me on January 2002. So yeah, 1.4 cents a share.
I still have the check somewhere, I never cashed it, I've always been meaning to frame it.
Re: Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?
#39Perhaps this is the wrong question, there are "how much money did you make on your options" and there is "How much money would you have made if you had sold them when they were worth the most?" You see I had some Sun stock left over from working there (about 8,000 shares) which at $60 a share in 1999 was $480,000, but after a reverse 3:1 split and selling them at $6 each in the Oracle merger they only netted me about…
I suspect your salary over the years netted you a heck of a lot more than your stock options. I did 3 years of contracting in London 15 years ago (after barely out of school), invested the money, and ended up with about $150k due to a favourable FX rate at the time. These days it seems that every man and his dog is earning $150k+ if they're a half-decent developer in silicon valley, so I guess the stock options don't…
Except that it's not a choice of 'salary' or 'stock options' it is 'salary' or 'salary + stock options'. I can say pretty confidently that I've earned more with salary + options than I would have as a consultant with just salary.
To date I have made at least as much money with Sun options as I made in salary (I worked there 10 years). At some level, some of my current savings can be traced back to those options so they are in principle (pun intended :-) still earning me money.
Re: Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?
#40Selling the stocks is the one-time operation, right? So you get paid once...
Is there any other scenario, when you get % of revenue constantly, e.g. on a monthly basis for the rest of your life? i.e. even if you leave the company (maybe after some vesting period).
Here, I say "revenue", because in case of "profit" the company can reinvest it, leaving you with nothing.
EDIT: So basically, is there a way to transform your employment into a passive income?