Title: I work in a startup in San Francisco. We&#x27;re profitable &amp; growing, about 30 people now. I&#x27;m one of the first engineers so I have a good chunk of stock options.<p>A lot of times when I talk to my friends (mostly engineers, mostly in their middle 20s) about stock options they don&#x27;t even know the basics.<p>A few examples from my life:<p>* A coworker left the company right before the end of his first year. He had ISOs, and it wouldn&#x27;t be that expensive to buy them, but he still decided to leave right before the 1 year cliff date to go work in another company.<p>* A friend of mine did not sign his stock options paperwork when his employer gave it to him more than 1 year ago. I guess he was just lazy, didn&#x27;t want to sign something he did not fully understand. I don&#x27;t know all the details but I assume if he signs it now he loses 1 year of vesting, the grant price will be higher — just not the greatest decision &#x2F; attitude imo.<p>* Another friend left the company where she had stock options, 6 months later she found out that the company was sold. She remembered about the stock options and asked me for advice. She did not know much about the topic so I told her roughly what her options were, told her about the 90-day rule. I later found out that she ended up getting some money from her past employer.<p>I know that there&#x27;s a conversation [1][2] about changing some of the technicalities around stock options, but I think there might be an even bigger problem — many employees don&#x27;t understand the basics of stock options, hence they don&#x27;t value equity as much as employers &#x2F; investors do.<p>Or is it just me and my friends?<p>1. http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.samaltman.com&#x2F;employee-equity<p>2. http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.triplebyte.com&#x2F;fixing-the-inequity-of-startup-equity
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