[olliej]

Essentially we have another story of people being offered equity compensation in a non-public company as though it were real compensation. Now they're even potentially being hit with tax liability for that equity despite having no way to realize the income.

This sounds like stripe does not actually have the cash to cover the withholding even then, and if they can't I think that means the employees are getting $X of "income" being taxed on that, and then having to put some significant % of that value aside, from their own assets, to cover that tax burden. Because stripe insisted on equity compensation with no method for equity compensation to have a non zero real world value despite its non zero tax value? "cool" I really hope stripe's equity compensation is a significant multiple of other companies to make up for this ... if they ever actually go public. Otherwise the "equity" remains fictitious zero value BS.

[AbrahamParangi]

Frankly, the villain is the tax code.

[olliej]

Nah, the company paying people with RSUs, and claiming those RSUs have a non-zero value that can't be realized.

[AbrahamParangi]

The company claims those RSUs have non-zero value because the IRS requires it to be so.