[pragmacoders]

If you're in this position, also be aware of whether you're being offered stock options or stock.

It's a little heartbreaking to watch years of equity disappear, in the company you built, because you don't have a year's paycheck worth of savings lying around to buy your options before they expire.

[taude]

People should be more aware of this, especially if you go to work for a couple years at a high-value Unicorn company where your strike price might be something crazy like $25. If you don't ride it through to exit, you may very well either be trapped, or gamble that they will have an exit in the future. You may easily be spending $60K or 150K to exercise your options and have no market to liquidity them.

Naturally, this is counter-balanced by you not giving up on your base compensation when you go to work at such a company and you mentally treat the stock perk as an incentive to get you through the rough work patches.

I'd be really curious about people's experience who worked at some of the more famous unicorns and left already. Maybe at a company like Uber or AirBnb?

Edit: I don't know if Uber issues RSUs or anything. I'm only basing on my knowledge that I know there's Unicorn valued companies out there with late stage round raises that offer options at what seems like grossly high prices.

[blackflame7000]

This almost seems like its a problem with the tax system. Depending on the potential upside, it might be better to exercise the options without the means to pay the taxes and then take out a loan to settle your debt with the IRS possibly at a discounted amount.