Update on Stock Options/RSUs Vesting Issue
<i>This means that the Senate has now made the tax reform bill a win for those who work in startups instead of a loss.</i><p>It is seriously gross that a tax reform bill that is by basically all accounts enormously, even proudly regressive is being sold to tech nerds with a marginal improvement in stock options accounting.<p>Here&#x27;s a fun detail of the GOP tax plan: it will, according to Senate leadership, include a repeal of the ACA&#x27;s individual mandate, which is the foundation on which guaranteed-issue health insurance works.<p>Prior to the ACA, if you or anyone in your family had, in any previous doctor&#x27;s visit, been assessed&#x2F;documented as having <i>any symptom</i> of a very long list of disqualifying conditions, you couldn&#x27;t buy individual-market insurance at any price. It was simply unavailable to you. There is no due process or meaningful appeal to these decisions, which were made mechanically and in bulk. How do I know? Because half my family --- none of whom suffers from any chronic conditions (or, really, any conditions whatsoever) turned out to be uninsurable when we started Matasano.<p>If you work for some gigantic startup like Github or Airbnb, and your equity turns liquid in 2 years, here&#x27;s a newsflash: the GOP tax bill is going to include a windfall for you. That probably would have been the case regardless of whether it included a new perk specifically for startup employees.<p>But if you&#x27;re <i>starting a company now</i>, or if you just in general care about the rationality of our public policy and the way we finance government, you should be extraordinarily wary of anyone --- especially an investment banker, even if they happen to be wearing khakis and a zip-front sweater --- trying to sell you this new bill. Their incentives are not the same as yours.