Do you how a company would you give employees shares directly without them being taxed on the grant?<p>One way I&#x27;ve seen this is with RSU double triggers: you are granted RSUs but you don&#x27;t own them until the stock is actually liquid. However, at that time, you will have to pay taxes and you don&#x27;t get long term capital gains.<p>Update: Just read your link, it&#x27;s crazy how on this topic, Ben goes on a rant about random things, and whether it&#x27;s fair to give 10y exercise period, because the person working there doesn&#x27;t somehow get that benefit. Even if you have a money, employees are not investors, they can&#x27;t just throw $10-100k on one startup, without knowing liquidation preferences or anything else, and which may or may not have some kind of liquidity in the next 10 years. It&#x27;s useless to give equity if most people get screwed.