Ask HN: How can employees protect themselves against expiring equity?

7 points

3 years ago

It seems like there's a trend for companies to stay private longer and longer. Double trigger RSUs can't be granted with an expiration longer than 7 years, and options can't be granted with an exercise time longer than 10 years after leaving the company (Zach Holman keeps a handy list of companies granting 10 year exercise windows here [1]).

So where does that leave employees? It feels like the calculus on joining early stage startups doesn't seem worthwhile anymore - before you were lucky if you had a liquidity event at all, now you have that plus if it happens at all it's very likely after your shares have expired and the company has no obligation to renew them or make you whole.

Is there anything prospective employees can do to protect themselves? Just join later stage / public companies?

[1]: https://github.com/holman/extended-exercise-windows

4 comments