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Comment by MichaelBurge | Hacker News Reader

No, the downside exposure is limited because you can quit your job. You don't have to actually eat a stock drop loss by working for 4 years and vesting a loser, you can change to another job and reset your basis.

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True, but there's an opportunity cost to having worked at Company X on the assumption that your RSUs would appreciate in value, when in fact they decreased and you could have worked at Company Y instead.

Anecdotally, I've never had RSUs depreciate to a point at which I metaphorically lose money for my efforts. This might happen at startups more often and megacorps less often.

Then this past year you've gotten lucky.

We were in an unprecedented bull run for tech stocks for a decade plus. No guarantee that continues. Markets are anti-inductive and past performance is no guarantee of future results.

This has been the case for a while, but also people who started at FB two years ago did very badly.

Again, usually it works out.

You were being paid less because you received those RSUs. The downside is set at the difference between what you got paid and what you would have been paid had there not been RSUs in the equation.

I think the reality is though that is is extremely difficult to find a job that would pay a comparable total comp in all cash. You choice isn't 200k cash, 200k rsu vs 400k cash since the 400k cash offer doesn't really exist. What is more, at least in Europe and Australia and ignoring tiny seed stage startups, the places that give out substantial equity actually pay MORE in cash than more traditional, regional companies.

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