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Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?

#41

Post by cpncrunch »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #39
cpncrunch wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Ah ok, I thought the $16k was the entire amount, but I see you said 'left over' :)

Still, for every engineer who lucks out when their startup turns into the next Apple, Sun, Facebook or Google, there are a lot more whose stock options end up either worthless or close to it. Looking at upvotes on the parent article, it seems like $0 outnumbers any other option by almost a factor of 4.

Re: Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?

#43

Post by ChuckMcM »

cpncrunch wrote: post #41
ChuckMcM wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Ah ok, I thought the $16k was the entire amount, but I see you said 'left over' :) Still, for every engineer who lucks out when their startup turns into the next Apple, Sun, Facebook or Google, there are a lot more whose stock options end up either worthless or close to it. Looking at upvotes on the parent article, it seems like $0 outnumbers any other option by almost a factor of 4.

If you've had more than one job your ability to select multiple options goes up :-). There is another post here which mentions they can have negative value (which is to say you exercised them but they were never worth anything) and that is important to.

If you follow the strategy that you only exercise and sell when they are worth money and you can sell, then options are always 'additive' to your salary. If you take options in lieu of salary then you're taking a bigger risk than someone who has both. The philosophy a number of people I know use with startups is enough salary to get by and save a bit, and options as an upside kicker.

Re: Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?

#44

Post by aetimmes »

zerr wrote: post #40

Selling 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 y…

Stock dividends come to mind. Not sure how common that is in the industry, though.

Re: Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?

#45

Post by stevewillows »

Over the years there have been several people in here who turned down options for, what would become, major players. iirc there was someone who turned down stocks with MS that would currently be worth upwards of $320m.

Sometimes it's difficult to get out of the endless loop of 'if only...'

Re: Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?

#48

Post by mixmax »

hello_newman wrote: post #37
codex wrote: post #28

More 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.

HN is the best tech news aggregator on the net. Where do you think Larry, Sergey, Eric, and Tim get their news from?

There are probably a lot more household tech names on HN than you'd initially expect.

Re: Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?

#49

Post by mixmax »

I think someone's skewing the poll.

Personal wealth follows a powerlaw distribution, and there's good reason to believe that income from stock options is somewhat similar. If you look at the numbers above they make reasonably sense except for the "in the hundreds of millions" which is far too high compared to the others. The "in the hundreds" and "in the thousands" should be higher, but I'd wager that that can be explained by people not getting stock options in the hundred or thousand dollar range. The paper work alone would cost more. It's expected that there are a few, since a stock can tank, so stock options initially worth millions can turn into thousands when cashed in.

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