Ouch I have a friend that works for VMWare (didn&#x27;t lose his job, well yet) but he was complaining that the restricted stocks he was getting (and well paying for because it&#x27;s under the Employee Stock Purchase Plan) lost 60% of it&#x27;s value already.
Unlike stock options there isn&#x27;t a guaranteed buyback price you just get the stock at 15% discount based on the market value at either the beginning or the end of the ESPP purchase cycle (the lowest of the 2) so while he hasn&#x27;t lost actual money yet he most likely will get stuck with quite a bit of stock which might be impossible to offload and very well be worthless by the end of the ESPP.