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Comment by scarface_74

3 years ago

$600K of that is “equity” in a private company. You never know when the company will go public or with what valuation.

I can’t sell equity in a private company to exchange for goods and services like I can stock that gets deposited in my brokerage account every six months.

9 comments

scarface_74

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opmelogy  3 years ago

There are exceptions right? Stripe isn't public yet I'm pretty sure there are ways to sell the stock that's accrued. I remember something about them opening up a way to sell your shares and since I get pinged on LinkedIn every so often about it I'm assuming it's a thing.

  • scarface_74  3 years ago

    Only at a deep “we buy ugly houses” type of discount and only if the company allows it and if there is a market for it. Like I said earlier, I know the value of my “equity” in a publicly held company:

    =GOOGLEFINANCE("AMZN", "price")* (number of shares).

    I can log into Fidelity and sell my shares during hours when the market is open and not at a discount.

    • kortilla  3 years ago

      > Only at a deep “we buy ugly houses” type of discount and only if the company allows it and if there is a market for it.

      This is incorrect. There is often significant unmet demand for private successful companies. Employees can often sell at close to what investors end up paying for it.

      2 replies →

financypants  3 years ago

If it is “equity” in a private company, any employees can certainly sell that stock to a venture buyer on the secondary market. However the share price will likely be discounted.

  • scarface_74  3 years ago

    Not “any employee” - the company has to allow it.

    What type of market do you think there was to buy my options in the 60 person startup that no one ever heard of at my previous company? I was paid in cash at market value so it wasn’t a big deal - and “market” for your standard enterprise CRUD developer architect was nothing to write home about compared to tech company salaries.