News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Shopify lets staff decide cash-stock pay mix as shares dive by ska on Friday September 16, 2022 @12:57PM (#32868923)
You are right that it is different, but it's not unambiguously better.

In the rather special case that stock price is monotonically increasing, there is an obvious benefit to locking in the earliest price you can.

On the other hand, if you have more cash every paycheck, you can trickle it into other potentially high growth companies and spread your risk. And you don't lose anything by leaving on a date you choose. And, as shopify has recently demonstrated, being locked into last years price could mean you lose a lot.

We've just left an extraordinary period of growth for tech stocks, but it won't always be that way.

Re:Shopify lets staff decide cash-stock pay mix as shares dive by idontpost on Friday September 16, 2022 @01:25PM (#32869275)
> You are right that it is different, but it's not unambiguously better.

That's a separate issue from the common misconception in this thread that cash is the same as RSUs.

RSUs have more risk than cash, and more potential upside. They are unambiguously different.

Re:Shopify lets staff decide cash-stock pay mix as shares dive by ska on Friday September 16, 2022 @02:13PM (#32869956)
Agreed - it's a mistake though to focus on the upside only.
Re:Shopify lets staff decide cash-stock pay mix as shares dive by peyton on Friday September 16, 2022 @08:41PM (#32873762)
You can protect downside by switching jobs. For many people on this thread there’s no mistake.
Re:Shopify lets staff decide cash-stock pay mix as shares dive by ska on Monday September 19, 2022 @01:59PM (#32901677)
That's practical, but not really equivalent. Having the same in cash gives you a different set of options.