[mactyler]

Just to clear up a specific point that I see a lot of people getting wrong here about the bonus stuff. I can at least say for the performance bonus it seems weird but thats how it works. Even though its money to reward your performance in “the past” so you’ve effectively “earned it”, if you quit like I did or get fired apparenty if it hasn’t hit the date that it gets paid to you yet you don’t get it. I think most people get surprised by this fact but since that specific situation is fairly rare I don’t think theres much effort to change the policy. I don’t even know what the policy really is, but just wanted to say that part at least of losing the entire performance bonus happened to me. But since I quit I think it’s more reasonable to lose it, that’s pretty lame to lose it when you’re fired since I had the time to factor that into my decision making knowing I would lose it where when you are fired and blindsided like that you are effectively losing a lot of money that you had already accounted for. I know corporations aren’t really dictated by emotion, but man it sure seems like there’s a lot of “bad luck” all at once here... that is really unfortunate. Maybe some rules could be changed to prevent certain things overlapping up like this. Getting fired is one thing, but getting fired and losing money you had already accounted for and technically “earned” is definitely putting you in an even harder spot. Really wish him the best. Also this isnt like tesla is going out of their way to screw this guy, these are just standard industry practices, but hearing situations like these definitely makes you wonder if they should be.

Also just to clear up some lingo for people that I still see people getting wrong:

Signing bonus Cash sum you “recieve” for accepting the job.

Performance bonus Cash sum you recieve several months after you’re latest performance review based on your “rating” for that half or year.

Equity (RSU) is seperate from both of these things but you can receive them in both situations. They then follow a vesting schedule that when you leave before the various vest dates its obvious that you wont receive the compensation.