Do you drive as far as you can on a hundred euro note, or do drive to your destinations and then refill your spent petrol? Unless you enjoy cruising in your car with no time limits, it's the latter.
I would be delighted to pay 15+18=33percent instead of the 35% income tax rate. And are capital gains subject to the other 1% tax for FICA? And not all capital gains wait 8 or more years. And if I manage to save a bit of my salary, the government doesn't give me an inflation-protected savings account.
Some people read the sports pages, some people read the business pages, but they are reading the same paper and they aren't so different from each other.
Find me one employee who would feel ripped off that their 5000, 10000, or 100000 sell at even $20 instead of some hypothetical number could have been achieved by better hypothetical management. Oh those poor people, should have taken the offer to work at _____ instead?
An investor who didn't read the s-1 was just wandering through a casino pulling slot machines without even reading the payout disclosures. There is right reason such an investor should profit. If that investor runs a fund for your capital, he should be fired.
Once a stock option vests, its future value is irrelevant, since one can simply buy the stock at market price if the option is underwater. The option only offers a small hedge against volatility.
Look up what an IPO is. It is an investment round, not a sale of personally help stock. Most shareholders are forbidden from selling during the IPO period. And in FBs case, they would have gotten better deals on secondary markets before the IPO.