Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by DanielGee 2865 days ago
Simply put, options are an option to buy shares at a specified price sometime in the future.

For example, a company can give you options to purchase X amount of shares at a ridiculously cheap price ( like $0.0005 per share ). Many startups do this. Sometime in the future, you can exercise the option and get X amount of shares. If you don't exercise the option, then you don't get to buy shares at the agreed at price.