[UncleMeat]

The point is that it isn't repeatable. Saying "oh I made bank investing in Tesla" is not useful information for another person making a decision now. Similarly, "Google stock went up dramatically between 2018 and early 2022 is not useful information for somebody who has offers in hand today from various corporations because they have absolutely no way of predicting future stock growth.

[arcticbull]

It's not about assuming that past performance equals future performance. With that attitude, nobody should invest in anything.

It's about bringing an investor mindset. Do your own analysis, make your own projections. It's literally half your paycheck, you owe it to yourself. It won't perform the same, sure, but your job as an investor is to analyze the quality of that investment. Will it go up or down? How much?

Whatever you vest is ordinary income. It's your compensation. Just because it's not fixed in advance doesn't mean it's not total comp! Don't pretend otherwise! :)

[UncleMeat]

An effective investor mindset is to buy the whole market and forget it. Doing your own projections and trying to choose a particular company based on your belief that it’s stock will go up 150% over the next few years is a thing that virtually zero people can do effectively.

[arcticbull]

Except that you are literally investing a large chunk into the company you are going to work for. So while you may take that approach with your discretionary income, you are taking a different stock-picking approach joining a company that offers equity compensation. Unless you join Netflix.

So while you're saying one thing here, you're actually doing another.