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>It's even worse than that because you paid taxes on the stock at the vesting price and not the sell price

How is this worse? You can always sell the stock as soon as it vests, with zero tax implication.

Not if you work in a private company. And even if you do sell stock immediately, if the stock price goes down so does your actual compensation. Equity compensation is less certain than salary compensation.

I suppose, but how many late-stage private companies (i.e. late enough that you're getting stocks instead of some kind of option or other you-aren't-technically-gaining-anything vehicle) are having wild downswings in stock price? I'm not aware of any, and while I could imagine there are some I would assume it's a relatively small number, but I could just not be in the loop.

Dropbox and Twitter both experienced drops in stock value of ~40%. Uber and Lyft both lost a third of their stock value since July. Washington is consistently taking about tougher regulations for tech companies. I would not assume that tech stocks are going to be stable in the near future.

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