[onedev]

This is incredibly naive. Please don't try to pass off blanket financial advice to others without knowing specifics or having any context on their situation. Different people have different risk profiles.

Also much of the logic in this post just doesn't make sense to be honest.

[bjterry]

It's not that naive. When considering your investments, you should consider your employment as part of your investment capital (in investment management this is your "human capital"). It's important to realize that your salary is more like a bond than an equity, but once you've taken that into account the author's thesis is basically correct. You are taking additional risk by investing your financial capital and human capital in the same asset.

It's far more naive to keep your entire investment in your employer than to sell all of it and diversify, even if neither of those is necessarily optimal. It's extremely naive to think that you have special insight into the future returns of a multi-billion dollar publicly traded company when you are a developer one year out of college, just because you work there.

[aveshcsingh]

Thanks for the feedback!

What parts didn't make sense?

[jfoster]

I would suggest that this bit doesn't make sense:

"Imagine that tomorrow the Department of Justice files an antitrust lawsuit against Google. The company is forced to split off into a dozen shards. My entire department is eliminated to cut costs, and I'm without a job. My life savings, held in large part in Google stock, pretty much disappears. The tech sector is in a recession, so I can't find a new job that pays enough to cover rent. My nest egg, my safety blanket, is gone."

It makes it sound as though you are living from paycheck to paycheck aside from your stock grants. It's possible that you are, even, but I think most people working at a big tech company would not be.

[icebraining]

How much savings did you have accumulated one year after graduating? It doesn't seem surprising to me that stock grants are a significant part of it, though I can't say I have experience working for a large tech company.

[jfoster]

For a recent graduate perhaps it would make sense, but the article doesn't come across as advice for recent graduates. In any case, I think the point is that the advice is applying a simple rule (sell granted stock ASAP) to everyone, seemingly ignoring all circumstances.

Selling granted stock is certainly good advice for someone, but not necessarily for everyone.

[icebraining]

"I'm writing this post because many of my Class of '14 friends are about to receive their first stock grants."

This implies it's advice to them, not necessarily to everyone.

[jfoster]

It also refers to the stock as nest eggs, though. It suggests that the advice is intended for well beyond the first couple of years.

Overall, it just seems a confused post. The circumstances it envisages are extremely remote, and if there was such a huge change in the industry, a bit of cash that you got from selling your first year's worth of granted stock isn't going to make much of a difference.