83b elections and option expiration. #61
Description
I would suggest adding these 3 provisions:
- Help with 83b elections for your options
- When you leave the company, all vested options do not expire. Options exercised 90 days after leaving the company are treated like NSOs due to the law. You did the work, so you've earned the stock.
- Options expire at least 15 years from issue. With IPOs happening on a far longer time frame, a 7-10 year option expiration date is now too short. Facebook took 8 years to IPO, and with your long term focus I think it will match with your philosophy.
As an employee engineer who left a relatively successful startup and never bought his relatively valuable options because the AMT got way too large along with other issues, I will never work for another startup again unless they are providing many year RSUs or have the above provisions.
Most companies are very resistant to adding the above 3 provisions, so most engineers quickly learn to not bother with it unless the company advertises this fact from the start. You lose a lot of potential engineers at the first email as a result, because they won't even bother to reply. You'll help your recruiting pipeline by doing this!