&gt; The restricted stock is not tradeable for at least 180 days after it was issued<p>ESPP and RSUs are two different and unrelated things. Your original comment I responded to mentioned only ESPP.<p>As for RSUs they&#x27;re tradeable as soon as they vest, which is typically a year+ after they&#x27;re granted. The stock can certainly go down between when they were granted and when they vest but it&#x27;s more accurate to say you made less money then that you lost money. If I buy a painting for a million dollars and give it to you (at no cost) and you then sell it for $800K you didn&#x27;t lose $200K.<p>Don&#x27;t get me wrong I (and every other VMW employee) would much rather see our stock go up then down, but I think you&#x27;re being a bit unfair to the ESPP and RSU programs. Even when our stock goes down (and it&#x27;s done pretty much only that since I started...which I hope is just coincidence, ha) it still works out better than the stock options employees at other companies (particularly startups) get.