- Valuation Model
- Expert Interviews
- Founders, funding
Why aren't products like Vested more commonly used by employees today?
Dave Thornton
co-founder of Vested
It's a couple of things. I think one is that there's a significant lack of education on the part of startup option holders. Sometimes they think they have shares, but they have options. Other times, it's hard for them to really think about the tax consequences of doing something now versus later.
Parallel to that, I think there is an issue around pricing. For you to exercise options today—which is a risky thing to do and also creates tax implications—you need to make sure that the pricing of the entire transaction makes sense relative to, for example, the difference between long and short-term capital gains that you're hoping to accelerate by exercising today. As the market matures and there are more folks doing the types of things that we're doing, the pricing will also get better. And I think it will probably meet the education component at some point in the future.