Re:I will not exercise my Gitlab stock options (2017)
by bpodgursky on Wednesday October 13, 2021 @04:51PM
(#28857576)
Ehhh but... $4,000 to exercise the shares? You have to be REALLY REALLY confident a startup is going to 100% no-soft-exit fail to not take that bet, given the vastly positive payout even an acquihire exit would give, given how cheap that strike price is.
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Re:I will not exercise my Gitlab stock options (2017)
by plorkyeran on Wednesday October 13, 2021 @05:01PM
(#28857665)
$4,000 to exercise and $250,000 in taxes on shares that they wouldn't be able to sell for another four years. The AMT heavily punishes exercising options in pre-IPO companies.
Re:I will not exercise my Gitlab stock options (2017)
by bpodgursky on Wednesday October 13, 2021 @05:05PM
(#28857727)
In 2017 when making this choice, presumably the FMV would not have been anything close to what it is now, and there's little to no issue with AMT.
Re:I will not exercise my Gitlab stock options (2017)
by calvinlh on Wednesday October 13, 2021 @05:24PM
(#28857904)
$4000 to exercise, but a lot more in taxes. Given that his shares were worth about 1/6 of what they are now, and assuming the FMV for tax purposes was about 1/3 that, he would have to pay income tax on $60k worth of paper gains. That's an additional 20-30k depending on the state.