A number of startups screw over their employees with options. 90 days is a terribly short exercise window. Kinda like a scam in a way.

But not all startups are like that. Where I work (Mixpanel), that window is 5 years. Which I feel is a much generous and fair offer.

With stock options, I pay no tax. If the company liquidates, then I convert the options to real stock (yeah i’ll have to pay money to do that). If things go better, I hold that stock for one year and when I sell, I pay capital gains tax at a much lower rate on the gains.

But. Big BUT, there’s a lot of assumptions. Things may not go well, may it doesn’t get valued as much, may be it takes longer than 5 years. Lots of may be’s. That’s part of the startup gamble.

We are hiring btw if anyone is interested in analytics space. DM me.