ASK THE HEADHUNTER What are stock options worth in a job offer?

[deanwebb]

What are stock options worth in a job offer?

In the November 13, 2018 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter a reader asks whether to accept stock options as part of a compensation package. Question I’ve been with the same company for five years, with total 18 years’ experience. I’m considering an attractive offer from a year-old start-up financed by a very respected venture capital group. The offer includes stock options. The idea is that someday they'll go public and will be hugely successful, or someone will buy the company, and we’ll all become rich (on paper). My question is, how would I go about putting a value on the stock options

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Source: What are stock options worth in a job offer?

[deanwebb]

Yay the link works today!

And I like what he said: those stock options are lottery tickets. You cannot put a value on something you cannot sell.

When I signed on to work at MSFT, I thought the options would make me a rich man. Then the stock plummeted and my options went underwater before they vested. I never cashed in on any of them, as they would have made me a poor man to pay to activate them at a price higher than the stock was worth.